The Day The Music Died: Washington Avenue Singing Tree Chopped Down

Do you remember the sound of birds singing amidst red berries in the tree next to St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church at 257 Washington Avenue, between DeKalb and Willoughby Avenues?

Yes? Well, that memory is all you’re going to have left of them because the tree was cut down early Monday afternoon by a crew of “workers with chainsaws,” according to local mom Heather Field Vatury.

“It was a beautiful tree [and] in the morning it would sing with birds,” she said. “I stopped in my tracks as I saw workers with chainsaws cutting it down. In the afternoon, I walked with my children and my friends to look and not one branch was left.”

Vatury’s children, Maya, eight, and Noa, six, expressed sadness that the birds wouldn’t be there to say hi on their daily commute to and from school. “I feel sad because I love the birds,” said Noa. “Now the birds have to find a new home,” added Maya.

Here’s a video (taken by young Noa, age six) of the birds singing in happier, warmer times, aka this past autumn, when she shared it with her kindergarten class, which had been studying birds:

So why was the tree chopped down? We’re not sure and calls to the last listed owner — St. Luke’s Evangelical — of the sites at 257 and 261 Washington Avenue were not returned as of this posting. There are no new buildings filings for the site at the moment, either.

“I assume that someone is building something on the vacant lot, but I am saddened by the loss of a home for the birds,” Vatury added. “I would imagine that the noise may have awoken [neighbors] in the mornings [but] it was such a lovely sight on the way to school every morning.”

What do you think of the Washington Avenue singing tree being cut down? Now we only have the one on Carlton Avenue to listen to (are there any other trees in the neighborhood you know of)?