O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, Wherever Are Your Lower Branches?

Submitted for your approval: More March Madness. For starters, I’d like to give credit where credit is due. While the New York City bureaucratic morass is typically a sluggish, chaotic mess, it’s also tree friendly. Sidewalk trees protected by makeshift wooden fencing are familiar sights at construction sites and such. Tree guards are required by law.

In seeing the forest for the trees, though, there is one area, I feel, where the city gets a less than stellar grade. New York City trees are “trimmed” every several years, often by contracted companies who dub themselves “tree experts.” Now, I’m not a tree expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I know a non-tree expert when I see one. In my view, the trimming brigades willy-nilly lop off tree branches. Long-standing trees that are unlikely to sprout new growths and branches are hacked cycle after cycle, with no regard for their age. A grandfather clause might help. Over time, the trees assume an umbrella shape—with everything on top and nothing on the bottom. And why, pray tell, would “tree experts” hack off the lower branches of a perfectly shaped pine tree in parkland no less—and one that is decorated each year with Christmas lights?

Permit me to make like a tree and leave this subject—and pivot to the ubiquitous electric scooters, bikes, and mopheads on the mean streets of 2024 New York City. Fueled by the pandemic and repast home deliveries, their numbers have skyrocketed over the past few years. Many of the vehicles are unlicensed and many of the drivers are undocumented—in other words, illegal on both counts. Most of the drivers I encounter—all day and every day—do not obey traffic laws. That is, they don’t stop at stop signs or red lights. They travel well above the speed limits. They zig and they zag to pass, dangerously so sometimes. In other words: They don’t care a whit about the common good or polite society.

Right outside my door this morning, I heard a small bang and spied a delivery guy sprawled on the asphalt alongside his scooter. My initial glimpse of him found him lying in the street near a thermal bag carrying a Dunkin’ Donuts order to a party that was going to miss breakfast. This poor fellow was immediately embroiled in an angry quarrel with the individuals he believed were responsible for his fate: lying prostrate on asphalt next to two spilled Mighty Macchiatos, a couple of Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Wake-Up Wraps, and a dozen Munchkins. What I could make it out in their non-English interplay was that the Scooter-Man went through a stop sign, made a wide turn right, and hit a car slowing in the approach of said stop sign. While awaiting an ambulance and the police—and blocking traffic both ways—the yelling back and forth ensued. The drama lasted almost two hours. Any lessons learned here? Hopeful but doubtful.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Lord of the Ring

Several days ago, on my way to the Garden Gourmet Market, an SUV pulled up alongside me—an unwelcome act in these parts in 2024. A man behind the wheel shouted out something that I could not immediately decipher. Suffice it to say, he had a poor command of the English language—well, actually, no command at all. Eventually, I got the gist of what this stranger was trying to convey, or at least I thought I did. He was getting low on “petrol” and looking for the nearest gas station. By pointing the way with a few simple instructions thrown in for good measure—in the universal language of road navigation—I figured the guy would hastily make a beeline to this lifeline, a stone’s throw away on busy Broadway.

But, lo and behold, he didn’t. While the fellow claimed to be low on “petrol”—yes—he further communicated to me that he had lost his “Visa card.” He therefore required monetary assistance—i.e., some bread—and was willing to give me the ring off his finger in exchange for some. For show and tell, the chap aggressively dangled the ring outside the driver’s side window. Now, I’m not employed with New York magazine as a financial advice columnist, so I was a little suspicious of the proposed deal. I reasoned that this wayward soul wasn’t quite on the level. 

“Sorry, fella, I don’t have any dinero for the petrol,” I called over to him. The ring man didn’t appear too pleased at my response—let’s put it that way. He angrily accelerated, driving off in search of a riper pigeon, I suspect—a Mourning dove, perhaps, conversant in his native tongue.

I don’t know: Maybe the guy was on the level, and I was being too cynical. Had I accepted the ring and booked an appearance on the Antiques Roadshow, the thing could have been a historical artifact from the Ming dynasty and worth $70,000 to $80,000. And this Bronx tale of mine would then be the story a Good Samaritan, who unexpectedly and immeasurably benefited from trusting his fellow man—a dude in distress—who merely wanted to gas-up, as my father would say. Such is the price we skeptics sometimes pay.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)