That’s a lotta green.
Tavern on the Green is on the hook to pay a $30,000 tab to remove a roughly 160-year elm tree – as officials fear a lethal fungus could ravage Central Park’s greenery.
Park officials recently ordered the historic elm on the Upper West Side to be axed after they found it had been stricken by Dutch elm disease, a tree-killing pathogen.
“I personally look after it so for this tree to come down is really devastating,” Tavern on the Green operator David Salama told The Post. “Very sad.”
Salama said even though the massive tree is on public parkland, he and his partner Jim Caiola are responsible for clearing it as part of their license with the city as operators of the iconic restaurant.
The decision to chop down the tree came after the city’s Parks Department and the Central Park Conservancy diagnosed it as infected with the disease.
“NYC Parks prioritizes preserving existing trees, and tree removal is always our last resort,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. “In order to minimize the spread of the disease to the other elm trees across the city, immediate actions will be taken resulting in the removal of the tree.”
While the city doesn’t keep records to pinpoint the exact age of the tree, it’s believed to be around 160 years old, which was first reported in Westside Rag.
So far, the conservancy and parks department have girdled the tree above the root flare to reduce further spread of the disease as a temporary stopgap before it’s completely removed, officials said.
Locals were sad to see the tree go.
“It’s pretty upsetting that we have to cut it down,” said the owners’ teen son, Leo, who is working at the restaurant over the summer.
Upper West Side local Mark Dye, 51, usually has his coffee in the tree’s shadow most days.
“It’s a shame. It’s a gorgeous tree, it has so much character,” he told The Post. “I’m not a tree hugger per se, but the tree defines the park.”
Central Park Conservancy arborists work throughout the year to examine the some 2,500 elm trees and look for signs it might be infected with the devastating fungal pathogen. When an infection is spotted, it’s then a race to save the tree before it’s too late.
“Depending on the size of the tree, it could be within a week that we can no longer save it,” said K Satterthwaite, who helps examine trees in Central Park, according to a news article the conservancy put on its website in April.
“If we see something that looks suspicious, we will either climb or use our aerial lift truck to examine it immediately.”
While the conservancy will inject a fungicide into the root flares of elms to prevent infection, the park loses between 15 to 30 elm trees yearly from the disease.
“It’s a loss,” Salama said of the latest elm to face the wood chipper — but he noted the restaurant plans to plant another tree in its place.
