A great day for a great oak in Teaneck

By Howard Prosnitz, Staff Writer

Teaneck Suburbanite, May 11, 2011

TEANECK - The great red oak that has grown for more than 350 years at what is today the intersection of Cedar Lane and Palisade Avenue will be allowed to die a natural death.

Through the efforts of community volunteers, including the Puffin Foundation, which provided an undisclosed amount of funding, a semi-circular conservation easement has been established in the area of the tree. The Bergen County Department of Parks will provide maintenance of the tree for the duration of its life.

At a ceremony on Saturday, May 6, attended by more than 40 residents, a plaque was installed facing Cedar Lane dedicating the tree to Irwin Weinberg, the late husband of Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a resident of Teaneck. The senator, who hosted the ceremony, recalled how 30 years ago her husband led the first of several battles to save the tree from destruction by developers, appearing before the council and planning board and, at one point, threatening to handcuff himself to the tree.

"This is a great occasion for the community to celebrate the coming together of citizens, activists and one of our houses of worship," said Weinberg.

The tree, which is the fourth largest red oak in New Jersey, according to the New Jersey Department of Forestry, has weathered several threats to its existence. Weinberg recalled that when her husband became involved, United Jersey Bank, which was then located across the street on Cedar Lane, had proposed buying the property and turning it into a parking lot.

In the late 1990s, a Jewish organization, Union for Traditional Judaism, bought the lot and the adjacent building at 811 Palisade Avenue. Officials from the seminary appeared at council meetings and promised to spare the tree. But in 2010 the organization was in bankruptcy court and attempted to cut down the tree to increase the value of the property to a buyer. Work crews had assembled on Cedar Lane and were about to begin the unauthorized cutting when Wally Cowan, a member and former chair of the Parks Recreation and Advisory Board, happen to pass by and observed them. Cowan called 911 and Mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin.

Through a series of negotiations involving the Congregation, which had been renting 811 Palisade Ave., the county and the bankruptcy court, Congregation Netivot Shalom bought the property and the Puffin Foundation donated money for the preservation of the tree in perpetuity.

Although Puffin Foundation Executive Director Perry Rosenstein would not reveal how much money the foundation donated toward the project, he said it was "a substantial amount."

Hameeduddin recalled that the call from Cowan came just days after he became mayor.

"Wally Cowan got everybody on the phone and the tree got a stay of execution, and then we all got involved and we saved the tree," the mayor said.

Bob McGrath, of Sesame Street fame, who has lived on Frances Street, just north of the property, for the past 32 years, led the group in a recitation of Joyce Kilmer's poem "Trees."

"I'm a real tree hugger and have loved the tree all my life. Saving it means a great deal to me," McGrath said.

Weinberg described Perry Rosenstein and his wife Gladys as "the catalysts who provided the necessary money to establish the easement."

Rosenstein spoke about some of the remarkable events that the great oak has quietly witnessed.

"It has been here since the Revolutionary War when George Washington retreated on this route," he said. "It was here during the Civil War when the Emancipation Proclamation gave freedom to African-American slaves and when hundreds of young men and women from Teaneck who went off to fight fascism in WWII."

Martin Sarver, lawyer for the Puffin Foundation, noted that when he drove past the property several weeks ago, the tree was bare but that now it is green.

"This is an absolutely unbelievable act of nature to which we are all recipients," he said. "Every year this tree loses its leaves in the fall, and they grow back again in the spring, and this has happened 350 times and will continue to happen."

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