Central Park Disaster to Opportunity

This is a topic i found a while back in the USA today and thought that it was very intersting. On the 18th of August, Manhattan experienced freak wind speeds upwards of 80-mph for half an hour. During this time Central Park received heavy damage to its historical woodlots, downing more than 500 individual trees and damaging a thousand others. The winds caused damage to the park never seen in its 156-year history and caused the loss of many of the parks oldest trees. The park was known for having a dense woodland among the dense urban forest of New York City, the trees allowed persons to completely block out the urban landscape while within the parks parameters. Since the windstorm, the Empire State Building and the surrounding Midtown skyline are now visible from within the park, where before the giant Elms, Oaks and Tulip trees blocked these views. After two months of cleanup, restoration is underway, with plans for restoring the park closer to the original Olmsted and Vaux vision. It is estimated $3 million is needed to repair the damage from the storm, which places the city in a even tighter squeeze since funding is already being cut due to the recession. In 2008, workers catalogued all trees within the park with trunks greater than 6 inches across, which totaled 23,568. Those killed during the storm are ‘virtually irreplaceable, particularly 26 American elms’, which have faced difficult times since the introduction of Dutch elm disease. Due to the threat of Asian longhorned bettles, the trees cannot be used for lumber. The replanting of trees will begin in the spring and will take an estimated two years to repair the damaged areas. This opportunity will be used to increase plant diversity and focused on the original planned vistas in the park, some of which were lost, as the trees got older.