A Street Tree System for New York City 35 



On streets where the buildings are high and extend to the 

 property line, and where the street has a large business de- 

 velopment, this latter type of tree will be found more beauti- 

 ful as well as more satisfactory. This formal type is sug- 

 gested as being especially appropriate for Broadway from 

 59th to 122nd street. Here the central parking treatment 

 already exists and the rapidly dying sidewalk trees need 

 replacing. 



IV. The Pruned Formal Type. 



The same kind of trees mentioned above, that is, trees 

 pruned to a low size and formal shape, may be used for plant- 

 ing on business streets as ordinary sidewalk trees. This 

 form of planting might be considered a variation of the nor- 

 mal type (Number I above) but is so distinctive and un- 

 usual that I have classed it as a distinct type. Although 

 little used as yet in American cities this form of planting- 

 has long been used abroad and has repeatedly been recom- 

 mended by city planners and landscape architects. This 

 type is adapted for use on high class business streets or com- 

 bined residential and business streets where sidewalks are 

 narrow and growing conditions generally poor, but where 

 the decorative effect of tree growth is highly desirable. The 

 advantages, both esthetic and practical, of this type of plant- 

 ing for use on streets of this nature are many. The formal 

 appearing trees lend an added dignity to the architecture of 

 the street, which is especially appropriate on a highly devel- 

 oped thoroughfare such, for instance, as Fifth Avenue. The 

 small-sized trees may be kept in good condition even when 

 grown in a restrictive soil area in which large trees would 

 rapidly deteriorate or die. When breaks occur in the tree 

 lines due to individual mortality these breaks can be readily 

 filled by planting new trees of fair size which, within a year 

 or two, will acquire in everything, save diameter of stem, 

 the size of the existing trees. Fair sized trees should be 

 grown in a municipal nursery for replacels of this kind. It 

 is doubtful if there is any city in the country in which this 

 type of planting would be more appropriate or more valuable 

 than in New York. 



