The residents of the Eerste van Swindenstraat in East were reminded this week with a flyer: their street will soon be refurbished at the cost of 73 large elm trees. Although the hard-won felling is final, students championed the trees for the last time by giving each of them a unique ‘medal’.
‘In recent years, jackdaws have been flying to us in large groups to spend the night. So if you like jackdaws, leave me alone’, is the text on one of the medals on a tree in the Eerste van Swindenstraat. And indeed. If you take the trouble to listen, you will also hear the jackdaws in the trees between the clamor of the Dappermarkt and other street noises.
Students from two classes of Montessori College East painted the texts and decorated the medals according to their own taste. They were allowed to choose a tree to hang their creation on. For example, all 73 trees in the Eerste van Swindenstraat have their own message. For example: ‘Reprofil? The trees first!’. Or facts such as: trees dampen sound, trees provide coolness, trees are small biotopes.
Airbnb
“A tree is not just a tree,” explains Charlotte Vergnol, one of the initiators of the project. “It’s food for insects and birds, but also a place to sleep. It’s actually an Airbnb with a buffet.”
Vergnol works at the Waste Palace, an initiative of sustainability center Jungle Amsterdam, where everything revolves around circularity. The scarves with which the medals are tied to the trees are made in their sewing workshop from leftover fabrics from the Dappermarkt. The project reached the students through the volunteer organization Ympact 020.
Heat
“Too many trees are removed and small blades are returned. That does not have the same impact. Heat stress is not normal here in the city. It affects more and more small children and the elderly. It is about health,” says Vergnol .
According to Vergnol, the municipality should have thought of the trees first when redesigning the street. “It depends on what you think is important. You can always do it differently. They now mainly want a kind of unity with Java Street, but I think that in the time in which we live now, the trees are much more important.”
Roots
Because new pipes have to be laid, the roots of the current trees will be damaged and they will die, the municipality said. It is the intention that the Eerste van Swindenstraat will soon become one-way traffic towards the Pontanusstraat − something the entrepreneurs in the street were not enthusiastic about since it would cost them business − and that cyclists share the road with the cars. For example, the sidewalk can be wider and ‘more attractive to shoppers’, according to the municipality.
Neighbor Siegfried Zimmerman sees something in the new plans. “Yeah, that’s very good, you know why?” He points to the bike path. “When you cycle, it goes up, eh, that earth. So it has to be improved.”
When he hears that the new trees have a system that prevents the roots from pushing the paving stones up again, he is completely satisfied. “I think that’s good,” he nods.
Hay fever
Just down the street, Marvin Mosart of Nandan Shipping doesn’t mind the trees leaving. “I have hay fever, so it’s better they are gone,” he laughs. “Really, I can’t sit quietly in the summer, haha!”
But he also thinks it’s a shame, he admits. “I don’t think I’ll be alive before those new trees get that big!”