Two panels of knitted designs, including one of the Lorax – the Dr. Seuss character who speaks for the trees – appeared around the trees in Courthouse Square overnight Monday as a protest against the removal of the trees as part of the planned updates to the square.
“My goal is to bring awareness to the tree removal,” Ellie Boylen, one of the organizers of the protest, told The News-Gazette. Boylen added that she doesn’t oppose renovating the square, just the removal of the trees and their replacement with ginko trees, which she notes are not a species native to the area.
“I think this will make the space less useable,” she said. “I think the big, old trees are beautiful and [removing them] will take away the charm of the space. We’re a historic town and those trees give a historic feel.”
The two designs, which were knitted by a group of local crafters known as the Knitting Ninjas, constitute what is referred to as a “yarn bomb.” The group has done several other yarn bombs in the city before, most recently in Hopkins Green over the Fourth of July. Boylen said that the plan is to leave the knittings in place for “a couple of weeks” to raise awareness and then they will be removed. Crafters from Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County, as well as from outside the area, worked for a month to put the designs together.
One of the panels displayed the Lorax and the other featured a green background adorned with a pair of eyes and several ladybugs. They both had tags attached to them which explained their purpose and had contact information for Main Street Lexington and Mayor Frank Friedman, encouraging people to contact them to request the trees not be removed.
Jesse Lyons, chair of the Courthouse Square project for Main Street Lexington, said Tuesday in a statement that the trees are being removed due to concerns about their condition.
"We are proud to be conducting this project for all in the community. Our team was advised by two independent, I. S. A. certified arborists who examined the trees and determined that one of the trees is in decline, and the other will shortly follow given their age and location," he said. "This primarily privately-funded project is doing the community a service by safely replacing the trees with younger, better situated space-appropriate trees, which will provide shade for far more years. In all, the grounds will see a net increase in trees.”
Work on the Courthouse Square renovation began last month and work is currently focused on moving the Veterans Memorial north to sit in front of the courthouse.
