Katie Holten is creating a New York City Tree Alphabet. Each letter of the alphabet is given a corresponding tree. For example, A = Ash, B = Birch, C = Crabapple.
Trees are drawn from the NYC Parks Department’s existing planting lists, as well as species being planted as a result of the changing climate.
The New York City Tree Alphabet will be used as an alphabetical planting palette, allowing us to rewrite the urban landscape. New Yorkers will be invited to write (plant) words, poems, or even short stories around the city. The Trees font will soon be available to freely download, allowing everyone to write a love letter to NYC, in trees.
Currently an artist in residence with the New York City Urban Field Station, Holten is creating the NYC Tree Alphabet as a way to increase ecological literacy about climate change, urban conservation, and local engagement with Nature.
The project grows from Holten's book About Trees (2015) and her public artwork Tree Museum (2009) which linked trees with community members telling their individual stories and was commissioned by NYC Parks, The Bronx Museum of the Arts and Wave Hill to celebrate the centennial of the Grand Concourse in 2009. Ten years later, in 2019, we will plant with the New York City Tree Alphabet. Join us!
Sharing the New York City Tree Alphabet in Pelham Bay Park, Bronx, NY, April 28, 2018.
Sharing the New York City Tree Alphabet with young members of Bloomberg in Pelham Bay Park, Bronx, NY, April 28, 2018.
Sharing the New York City Tree Alphabet with young members of Bloomberg in Pelham Bay Park, Bronx, NY, April 28, 2018.