All photos in this chapter are © by Joe Konz
This chapter is all about pictures. Garfield Park has had many unusual trees over the years, some still around, others long gone, usually for safety reasons.
I begin below with one of the first-ever park trees to catch my eye. Probably because it's hard to miss by motorists westbound on Garfield Drive. It's almost straight ahead at the point of the L-shaped drive where the road takes a 90-degree turn north.
This photo was taken quite a few years ago. I'm told by those still living in the neighborhood that the top of the tree has taken yet another twist. I can't wait to get back and photograph that!
The park is sprinkled with many other interesting trees. Some of these will be familiar to anyone who lives in the park neighborhood. I'll drop in captions and/or explanations where needed, so for now, enjoy the visuals.
I first came across the tilting tree above in December 2012, It is along a bank on the east side of Conservatory Drive not far from Tickle Belly Hill. This view looks north. To put its oddity in perspective, I include the photo below, taken from the opposite side, and farther away from the tree, now looking south down Conservatory Drive.
After every snowfall, I saw the same "vision" on the tree above as I made my customary walks through the park. To me, it appears to be a bear, shrouded in snow, hugging the tree. Consequently, I call this the Huggy Bear tree. Below, another tree along Garfield Drive, on the north leg, that appears (to me anyway) to have a modern haircut crop top. And not far from that, back on the southern leg, is the tree shown in the second photo below, a shot taken Dec. 29, 2012.
The photos above and below are one and the same except for one detail: The one below is the "color" original, the one above is a conversion to black and white. The point of running it twice is to emphasize how the incredibly overcast the skies were when this was taken, Jan. 8, 2005, rendering the color version almost a monochrome without me having to do a conversion in post-processing. In addition to the overcast skies, the overnight snowfall was so wet that it stuck to the branches. It's difficult to locate any color in the shot below, but if you pull up a magnifying glass over the image, you can detect slight brown on tree trunks in the foreground and some reddish brown in the dirt splotch alongside the first tree left of the lamppost on the right side of the image. An eastbound pedestrian comes across these trees, by the way, as he or she crosses the Bean Creek pedestrian bridge midway along Conservatory Drive. Garfield Drive is well behind the trees in the far background.
Above and below: A winter and autumn view of a radically leaning tree that was just west of the Sunken Gardens and south of the new Bean Creek pedestrian bridge in the first decade of the new millennium. The winter version above looks south and was taken in December 2012; the autumn view below, which I composed to include a nearby pedestrian to provide size perspective, looks north and is from October 2010. The tree was eventually removed.
I don't know the story about this topless tree (above), which from the background is within eyeshot of Garfield Park Drive. It just struck me as odd looking. And speaking of odd, I suppose the tree below might seem odd, but it caught my eye when I first noticed it.
Above and below: This is a closeup of the Huggy Bear tree I presented up higher. It's in a meadow south and west of MacAllister Amphitheater. The streaks of light in the night image above, taken in mid-March 2013, were captured as a result of a slow shutter speed that my iPhone used to take the image.
This striking V-shaped tree above was about 10 yards or so southwest of Tickle Belly Hill, the stone bridge over Pleasant Run, which is in the background (and in the photo below, but more on that shortly). This point is just outside the north playground parking lot. I took this photo on Feb. 5, 2006. The tree was still there for a shoot I did in spring 2007. Below, besides being another photo of Tickle Belly Hill, the image apparently shows branches of the fallen V-shaped tree on the left, at least that's what I reported when I first posted this image for the blog in December 2012. That tells me that the tree either fell over at some point or was intentionally felled for safety reasons (I'd forgotten about that detail until working on this post) and that it was still around in some form at least through December 2012, six years after I took the photo of it above.
One of my favorite captures is the above silhouette of what I henceforth referred to as "The Tree." It stands in the southwest part of the park near where the park’s former southern access used to be. I came across the tree at sundown on my walk home from the Garfield Park Arts Center on Feb. 16, 2011. I had a Canon PowerShot G12 with me, so I used it to take this photo. The view looks west and slightly south. Autumn and daytime winter seasonal versions of "The Tree" appear in the first two photos below.
Above: My primary focus in this photo was the huge colorful tree, which I took during my October 2004 autumn shoot. But later, I found it interesting that there was another leaning tree in this frame. The trees sit along the pedestrian path north of the Burrello Family and Aquatic Center leading to the Bean Creek stone pedestrian bridge along Conservatory Drive.
The photo above and the first three images below give you an idea what one might find if he or she would gaze upward at a tree on a sunny day in autumn.
Above and below: Two perspectives of a sole tree of color standing as a sort of sentinel at the entrance of the Garfield Park Arts Center and its parking lot.
The tree above along Pagoda Drive just south of the Burrello Family and Aquatic Center parking lot access is what I used for the daily logo at the top of this blog series. It has lost some splendor and magnificence through the years since I took this photo in October 2004. Last time I saw it, it appeared as if it might be dying. I don't recall its fall splendor being as brilliant since that autumn 2004. A winter version of the tree, taken from the opposite side (looking south) appears below, with Pagoda Drive on the right. If you've followed this series daily, you saw a monochrome (black-and-white) version of this photo in Chapter 16's Four Seasons: Winter.
Staying in the winter realm are this specimen above, whose bark seems to be almost completely stripped, and the low-branching specimen below. The image above was taken Feb. 6, 2010, the one below Dec. 29, 2012.
Above: This was taken Nov. 1, 2016, and was part of a backlighting exercise I was indulging at the time. I considered my mission accomplished, although this is just one photo of many that I took that day.
Above and below: These odd trees are in the southwest quadrant of the park. Photos were taken Feb. 25, 2011.
Another closeup of the Huggy Bear tree but from a different vantage point (above), and below, a super closeup of the nub at the center of the tree as seen in the photo above.
Another frame from the Feb. 6, 2010, shoot (above), a sunny day after a snow storm. I used a polarizing filter on this shoot, hence the enriched blues in the sky. Below are the March 13, 2024, remnants of a tree that has seen better days. It is located in a modest grove off Bean Creek’s west bank immediately south of the new pedestrian bridge.
Above: A couple trees with odd curving tops stand next to the pagoda between the viewer and the arts center.
Another loner tree (above) at the north end of the Sunken Garden, displaying its pink spring blossoms. Below is an interesting (to me anyway) array and direction of branches in a few snow-powdered trees in the middle of the park.
Above: This photo of the conifer is the most recent of all photos in this chapter. I took this on March 13, 2024, while I was in the park with family on a photo-related matter. It sits north of the amphitheater between the paths in front of and behind the performance facility. The deciduous tree to the right of it is an interesting specimen as well, with those large, snaking branches. I regret not taking the time to get a better shot of it, but ... I had other matters to attend to, and it was the leaning and curved-top conifer that had caught my eye.
Next up: Chapter 39: Vintage Base Ball
Previously in the Garfield Park in Pictures series:
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