These days, Myles enjoys the status of esteemed downtown New York cultural figure. “You need the time to get arrested and I had little to do yesterday,” they said. They ended up spending much of the day at the nearby Seventh Precinct. The prior morning, Myles was arrested after they had dashed across the same site in an attempt to defend a tree from getting chopped down. “This is Indigenous land that was stolen back in 1643 and now it’s happening all over again.” “We believe these cherry trees were between 80 and 100 years old,” she said. Huddled beside Myles in the rain was Sarah Wellington, an artist in her 30s who wore a Democracy Now! tote bag and took video of the workers with her phone. The activists don’t dispute the need for some kind of climate-driven action, but they oppose the city’s strategy of razing a park beloved to generations of Lower East Siders who appreciate its scruffy athletic fields, rusty barbecue pits and concrete chess tables. Once the current park is demolished, the city plans to raise it eight to 10 feet by covering it with landfill, in effect building it anew. The city started tearing down East River Park last year as part of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, a plan that aims to improve the area’s flood protection capabilities. “They’ve been talking through their roots. “The trees have been talking to each other,” they said.
Myles, who uses the pronoun “they” and was wearing tinted spectacles, lightly ripped jeans and a brown trucker’s cap, took a picture of the arboreal carnage with their cellphone and posted it on Instagram, where they have more than 30,000 followers. Roosevelt Drive, and the cherry tree was chopped down to accommodate the city’s plans. At issue is the contentious demolition of East River Park, the 50-odd acre urban waterfront green space that runs alongside the Franklin D. But not anymore.”įor more than a year, Myles, the author of more than 20 books of poetry, fiction and essays, including the cult-hit novel “Chelsea Girls,” has been an ardent crusader in the fight between a group of Lower East Side residents and the city’s powers that be. “There’s been cherry trees here for hundreds of years. “There it goes, the last cherry tree on Cherry Street,” said the 72-year-old poet Eileen Myles, who stood in the drizzle bearing witness to the scene. Police officers moved in, arrested the activists, and the sound of a chain saw filled the air. Several protesters surrounded the tree to protect it from the New York City workers who were about to cut it down. On a rainy spring morning, an old cherry tree was beginning to blossom in a little park along Cherry Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
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