Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at a tree that went a long way at hypersonic speeds to get where it is now, in a Manhattan park. We’ll also find out about City Hall’s plan for some Bronx buses, which you’d never call hypersonic, to go faster.
A tree in a Manhattan park traveled a long way before it got there — to the moon, almost, and back. Some 1.4 million miles, according to NASA. The tree is a sweet gum. It wasn’t actually a tree when it flew in space: It was grown from seeds carried on the Artemis I mission in 2022. NASA was counting on Artemis I to usher in another era of lunar exploration, even though it was years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Artemis I didn’t go all the way to the moon — NASA says that Artemis IV, in 2028, will make the first moon landing since the 1970s. But two lunar flybys did take Artemis I as close as 80 miles from the moon’s surface. Back on earth after re-entry and splashdown, the seeds from Artemis I were inspected and planted, and NASA began distributing seedlings to institutions that had applied to be “moon tree” stewards — schools and colleges, museums and libraries. And Madison Square Park. The park will celebrate its tree today with a “moon tree launch party” beginning at noon. The Madison Square Park Conservancy, which manages the park, worked with the Poetry Society of America and commissioned a poem from Kimiko Hahn, a distinguished professor at Queens College who is the New York State poet laureate. The tree was thigh-high when it arrived last year. “We didn’t advertise it,” said Holly Leicht, the executive director of the park, “because we wanted it to establish itself before people started ogling it.” Now it is taller than the elephant’s eye in a Broadway song — tall enough, she decided, for a ceremony. They chose today because it is the anniversary of the liftoff of Apollo 11, the first spaceflight that took humans to the moon, in 1969. When the park heard that NASA would plant the seeds from Artemis I and distribute seedlings, it filed an application. Stephanie Lucas, the park’s director of horticulture and operations, noted that the park was the only arboretum in Manhattan, so a seedling from Artemis I would be well cared for. It was certified as an arboretum through an international accreditation program and has more than 100 labeled species. The park also told NASA that it expected a tree to be a crowd-pleaser. The park would provide the crowd — some 60,000 people pass through every day, Leicht said — and the tree could do the rest. Lucas found out in a cellphone call that the park had been chosen. Like a Mission Control voice, the caller sounded confident, calm and maybe a bit curt. “This is NASA,” the voice said. “I went, ‘Oh, hi, NASA,’” she recalled. When the seedling was delivered, she and her team planted it not far from one of the oldest trees in the park, an English elm that dates at least to 1847, when the park opened. It’s not the only moon tree in the city: NASA said it sent one to Bronx Community College in 2024. Lucas said that, as with seeds taken on Apollo 14, NASA’s interest was in whether the seeds “were going to germinate into something different” — or, more precisely, germinate differently — because they had been in space. With the slightest hint of a smile, Leicht said: “So far it’s just a tree. So far there’s no sign of alien life.” WEATHER The morning will start off cloudy, with more patchy smoke, before gradually becoming sunny and hot. The high will be near 92 before dropping to around 75 tonight. More smoke, a plume from Canadian wildfires that has been drifting our way, is expected after midnight. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until July 23 (Tisha B’Av). QUOTE OF THE DAY “Years of inconsistent leadership, eroded correctional practice and weak accountability left the department unable to reliably perform many of its core functions.” — Nicholas Deml, the official in charge of overhauling New York City’s troubled jails, referring to the city’s Department of Correction, as he submitted a plan to improve conditions at the Rikers Island complex. The latest Metro news
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Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has called for bus service to be fast and free, is moving forward with a plan that would at least make them faster on a stretch of Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. The mayor, reviving an initiative that was put on hold after the Trump administration raised objections to a similar plan last year, is going ahead with a road redesign that would include a dedicated “busway.” It would be reserved for buses, emergency vehicles and trucks during peak travel times. The city says that the change would make commutes faster for 39,000 bus passengers a day. Mamdani announced a similar busway project for 34th Street in Manhattan last month. His predecessor, Eric Adams, suspended that initiative last year after the Trump administration took issue with it, citing concerns about how it might affect road access for trucks and emergency vehicles. The administration had threatened to withhold funding and approvals for other transit plans if its concerns were not addressed. The announcement about the Bronx busway was the second in a week aimed at making it possible for buses to go faster than their current average speed of eight miles per hour. Last week Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul released a plan to chop six minutes off travel times on bus routes across the city through street redesigns, expanded traffic enforcement and other changes. Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director at Riders Alliance, a transportation policy nonprofit, called the busway “a crucial upgrade” in the Bronx, which relies heavily on buses. “Bus riders have been waiting plenty long enough,” he said, “and this administration is picking up on the fact that riders can’t afford to waste any more time.” METROPOLITAN DIARY Slipping Upstream
Dear Diary: I went to N.Y.U. and used to spend hours watching the pickup basketball games at the West Fourth Street courts. The confidence. The exhibitionistic joy with which the players passed and leaped and hustled. It was thrilling. I wasn’t ever great at sports. I’ve likened my career to a team sport many times. But, in a non-metaphorical world, I must admit that I’m afraid of the ball. You never know where it’s coming from, and there’s generally an expectation that it be caught. I am a good runner, and an especially skilled city walker. I like feeling like a deft salmon slipping upstream. But the eternity that exists when it becomes clear that an actual ball is heading my way? That has always filled me with dread. After I graduated from college, I lived for many years on the Lower East Side and would often walk past Sara D. Roosevelt Park. There’s an open-air court there. No cage. Just sporty chaos within yards of traffic. One day, I was speed-walking past a pickup game, eyes down, in my salmon zone. And it happened. A blocked shot. Swatted. Coming my way. Somehow, without breaking stride, I lifted one arm, palmed the ball and shot it straight back into the game. The players cheered. I never stopped walking. But the surge of pride and adrenaline was incredible. I have never been cooler, and most likely never will be. — Rebecca Wisocky Ms. Wisocky is an actor who appears on the CBS show “Ghosts.” Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson, Andy Chen and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
