Apparently
there’s been some hullaballoo over some 100 new cherry trees planted
along the Charles Esplanade / lagoon in celebration of the Japan
Society of Boston’s centennial. According to a WBUR report last Friday,
members of the Charles River Preservation Society believed that the
decision to begin planting the trees bypassed the usual process as well
as the area’s Master Plan. (Which sounds more sinister, the covert
plantings or the Master Planning?) One claim made by a woman who was
intervied is that the trees’ planting specifically violates the Master
Plan effort not to plant in straight lines, as well as to leave
the specific strip of land (depicted at right) open for, say, kite
flying and so that rich people like the woman being interviewed can
look out their windows and see the Longfellow Bridge change colors or
something like that.
If we’re to have trees at all along the lagoon, I’d rather they be native Massachusetts trees myself. I’ve even heard
rumor of disease-resistant elm trees. But then again, who am I kidding — it’s not like any part of the lower Charles is natural anymore (nor, really, a “river”).
As a sino-American, don’t you feel affinity with the Japanese people? I mean, don’t you eat at McDonalds together?