Prospect Park Tree Homes to be Cut Down

The hollow trees that in Prospect Park will be cut down, a park spokesman said.

At least four of the trees will face the chainsaw starting next week, said Paul Nelson, spokesman for the Prospect Park Alliance.

The trees are healthy, but are "reaching the end of their life cycle," Nelson said. "This is the time of the year to do it." 

The decision comes one day after park workers took away the residents’ possessions and cleaned up the trash in the area and two days after the existence of the tree squatters were reported in The Brooklyn Paper.

“Camping is illegal in the park and any signs of it that we find, we remove them,” said Nelson, adding that this time of year, the sleeping in the park could be deadly.

Park workers had boarded up the opening to one of the trees, but as of Tuesday, someone had removed one of the boards.

People have been squatting inside the trees for about three weeks, said Anne-Katrin Titze, a frequent park visitor.

When Patch visited Tuesday there were none of the residents, but plenty of signs they were there including a frying pan propped next to a tree, ashes from recent fires, cardboard placed on the ground inside of the larger trunks and even, at one site, what looked like a Gerry-rigged Nautilus machine (see photo gallery at right).

Before the clean-up, workers from the city’s Department of Homeless Services tried to make contact with the park residents and get them into shelters, Nelson said.

As for whether the residents are able to get back their possessions, Nelson sadly, they won’t.

“If the person is around they let them take their stuff. But if there is no one there they throw it away, unfortunately. They don’t have storage space to hold it,” he said.