Elephant Graveyard in Inwood, North Manhattan

The Times reported that someone chopped and mangled 35 cedar trees on the bluff overlooking the south end of Inwood Hill Park in March.

I climbed the hills this afternoon on a sunny Friday afternoon to scout around for the site. The further shame of what this(these) miscreant(s) did was to spread the violence out over several areas. I’d imagined it was a concentrated area but, no, there are felled trees along the paths and deep into the hills.

How it was done remains a mystery to me. The trunks are shattered as if a lightening bolt hit them, not as if someone took an axe or electric saw to it. There are still only buds on the trees so to have felled so many enormous trees in such a ragged way had to been seen or heard by those only a couple hundred yards down the hills on the soccer field, basketball or tennis courts.

There will be a flock of tree huggers and naturalists in Inwood Hill Park in two Saturdays, May 3rd, for the annual Drums Along the Hudson festival of Native American dance and traditions. Hopefully some will climb into the hills and do CSI Cedars for us.

In the meantime, I climbed down from the hills to watch All Hollows High School play Cardinal Hayes High School in baseball on Diamond 2. This, and the sun, and the Mister Softee truck, made sense to me.