Ann Taylor does not want this tree to be cut down. Credit: John James

Ann Taylor of Burlington was chained to a massive cottonwood tree on the waterfront when she leaned forward and called out to a couple of bicyclists passing by on the bike path.

“Hi! Do you like this tree? They’re going to cut it down!”

Taylor said she learned earlier this week that the tree, at the bottom of King Street, was to be taken down as part of a plan to improve the bike path. It’s huge, with a massive trunk that splits into three as it climbs to a crown.

So the physical therapist chained herself to it Wednesday afternoon — she said she’d stay a couple of hours — and tried to convince everyone who biked, walked or ran by to call the Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger. 

“Are you local? Do you know this tree?” she would ask. 

Some stopped and leant her a sympathetic ear. 

“Call the mayor!” she shouted to a couple of bicyclists who didn’t stop. “They’re gonna chainsaw it down in a week!”

Jesse Bridges, the city’s director of parks and recreation, confirmed the tree is coming down. The city is widening the path, and it’s in a narrow right-of-way by railroad tracks — so there’s no room to move it. Cottonwoods damage paving, he said, and the pavement by the tree is in poor shape.

“It’s the wrong tree in the wrong place,” he said. “We don’t take these decisions lightly.”

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News editor Matthew Roy has been at Seven Days since 2014. Before that, he was an editor at The Virginian-Pilot.

10 replies on “Ann Taylor Wants to Save a Tree”

  1. Well the one good thing is that everyone is looking for firewood so Burlington may be able to turn a profit.

  2. Lone cottonwood in a paved landscape. All the more precious for being alone. Hold a public meeting to find other options!

  3. Way to be Ann. I’d like to meet you and help out much as i can.
    ch 5 interviewed me at the tree today so this news is reaching folks.
    brian goblik

  4. (((NO))). This is a beautiful old tree that lends character to the view from the Seafood Shanty and the Ice House restaurants as well as folks on the bike path and boaters in the marina. It would be a crime to cut it down. Find a way to keep it.

  5. @Paul Jones, cottonwoods aren’t very good firewood.
    If you leave it alone for a few years it will probably die. Cottonwoods grow extremely fast but don’t live very long. A maple tree that size would be 200+ years old but I doubt that giant cottonwood is over 70.

  10. @ Bob Comp

    Please take her, and any number of other transplanted, loud, bleeding-heart “activist” gadflies back, please!

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