Very big sugar maple

“If you want to learn something, hang out with people smarter than you are”, so said a wise man.  We took a tree walk on Friday on a beautiful afternoon and learned a lot.  The setting was the revived Knights of Pythias – Greenwood Cemetery at Adams Avenue and Ramona Street.

Leading the group was Dr. David Hewitt from the Academy of Natural Sciences, a very amiable fellow who never made me feel ignorant.  Along with Dr. Hewitt was Edward (Ned) Barnard who is famous in his own right as the author of “New York City Trees” as well as a very nice series of children’s books.

I have a slide show ready at this link of a sampling of the trees we found along our journey.  (If you click on Show Info button at the top right it will display the captions.)

The most spectacular to me was the sugar maple that hugs the side of the cemetery along Ramona Avenue.  It stands 72 feet high and is 15 feet around the base.  That makes the diameter about 56 inches.  Ned took careful measurements and pictures of course.  You don’t see many that large, so I am told.

We also saw American Sycamore, White Cedar, Black Cherry, Silver Maple, Pin Oak, Willow, Horse Chestnut and Norway Maple.  I may have forgotten some but I noted them on the captions of the pictures.  What we did not find was evidence any plantings dating back to the 18th century.  The trees appear to date to about when the cemetery was planned and laid out.

I also took some pictures of the area of the cemetery not yet restored which you can see here.  Doctor Hewitt mentioned that the rear of the cemetery is actually an early successional forest.  The trouble is the forest has taken over the grave areas and so interspersed with the trees are burials and tomb stones.  They are clearly working on restoring it and it should actually be very nice when that is done.

It was interesting that even among all that overgrowth, we found a new stone recently put down in memory of a Civil War soldier.

It was a great way to spend the afternoon and painlessly educational.

A lot of the rural folks who happen to wander into Frankford notice that we sure do have a lot of trees for a city.  Yes we are arborally blessed and this Friday, if you are available at about 2PM, you might want to take a walk with an expert on trees to see what we really have here.

Dr David Hewitt from the Academy of Natural Sciences will be leading the 5th in a Series of Tree Walks on Friday November 4 at 2:00 PM through Greenwood Cemetery, possibly also Oakland Cemetery, if time allows.  The plan is to meet at 930 Adams Ave Philadelphia, PA 19124 (the house on Adams near Ramona).

If you haven’t been to Greenwood since it has been restored, come on out.  It is much different than what you may remember from a few years ago. Sounds like great exercise on a fine Fall afternoon.

It has taken me a while but I finally got over to the Rush house to get some current pictures to compare with what we had posted in January of 2009.  I just wanted to show how much has changed.  Interior shots are courtesy of Joe Menkevich.  Click on the small picture and you will get a popup with the larger version.  You can see there is still work to be done but the house appears to be essentially complete.  You can see that the iron work that spanned the front gate has been removed.  I hope it is out being restored.  It was unique.  The grounds are neat and tidy now although I didn’t walk all around the property.  It is actually so different now that I lost my landmark for W.C. Fields parents whose grave I stumbled over by accident when I first went in there.

There are more pictures on their web site.  Take a look via this link.

Tom Waring of the Northeast Times has a report on the dedication of the restored house on the property of the Greenwood Cemetery.  No hard feelings that they did not invite us to the big event that took place back on June 10th.   We’ll get over there in a few weeks and do a before and after of the pictures we took in 2009.  There is a lot of great history in that house.

Sometime, things do work out.  What has been a long campaign waged by several neighborhood groups is showing some real results.  The groundbreaking for the reconstruction of the Greenwood Estate at Rush Farm was held on Friday, April 30th.  It was a beautiful day and a good crowd of the folks who made it all possible was on hand.

The house, located on property once owned by Founding Father Dr. Benjamin Rush, was recently named Greenwood Estate at Rush Farm. Speakers at the event include Cornel Williams, Manager, Philadelphia Healthcare Properties, Inc., Michelle Mardenborough, President, Greenwood Cemetery, Joanne Clare, Chief Director, Friends of Greenwood, and Barry Howell, President of Northwood Civic Association.

Participating elected officials included State Reps. Anthony Payton and John Taylor, along with City Councilman Daryl Clarke. They were joined by special guest 90-year-old Betty Ewart, who lived in the cemetery caretaker’s house as a young girl, and community leaders, the new cemetery owners and preservation team members. They all worked together in an unprecedented effort to save this beloved but neglected ₁₉th century residence from the wrecker’s ball.

Below you can see a short video of the ceremony and an exclusive look inside the first floor of the house.