Boston: Playground renovation in Eastie required slashing healthy trees

BOSTON — There is a big pile of branches in the corner of Noyes Playground in East Boston.

In fact, it’s all that’s left of perfectly healthy trees chopped down by the city this week.

Residents like Lucy Diprima are disappointed and upset.

“Oh yeah, I mean, it's sad,” she told Boston 25 news. “A lot of those trees have been there for so many years."

Diprimia said those trees at Noyes Playground helped cut down on the noise, added shade and were just nice to look at it. Neighbors can't figure out why the city couldn't build around them.

“There are a couple [of trees] over here on this side actually that they took down, too. Some of the width of their trunks were humongous. So, you know that they were there for a long, long time,” she said.

The city says these trees were around 30 years old. But a spokesperson with the parks and rec department said the trees had to come down for health and sanitation reasons.

The project manager told Boston 25 News there is a drainage issue in the park, and the trees had to come down to prevent sanitation lines from backing up and flooding into people's homes.

“I think they're making a nice, newer park, then I feel it would be better for the community here,” another neighbor, Lucas Saravina, said.

He’s lived next to the park for six years, and has a front row seat for the $4.2 million restoration project.

“I think because they've lived here for so long they feel like they have a right to have those trees there. I completely understand it,” Saravina said.

The city says it will plant forty new trees before the project is finished. The playground is scheduled to reopen next spring.

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Cox Media Group