For E. B. White’s Willow Tree, Chapter Ends
In the 1940s, when E. B. White, the author and columnist for The New Yorker, looked out of his back windows onto the private Turtle Bay Gardens along East 48th Street in Manhattan, an old but picturesque willow tree commanded his view.
He draped the tree in metaphor and imbued it with immortality by writing about it in the concluding lines of his 1949 book, “Here Is New York.”...
But now, the tree is gone. In 2009, the thoroughly bald and rotted tree was chopped down to save it the indignity of cracking and collapsing on its own. There was a small ceremony at the time, and this summer, the enclave’s garden committee had the remains of its trunk dug out and removed as well; now the sun shines down on the garden’s nearby fountain a bit more brightly.
So what of the city?...
Read entire article at NYT
He draped the tree in metaphor and imbued it with immortality by writing about it in the concluding lines of his 1949 book, “Here Is New York.”...
But now, the tree is gone. In 2009, the thoroughly bald and rotted tree was chopped down to save it the indignity of cracking and collapsing on its own. There was a small ceremony at the time, and this summer, the enclave’s garden committee had the remains of its trunk dug out and removed as well; now the sun shines down on the garden’s nearby fountain a bit more brightly.
So what of the city?...