The Leidsebosje Planes

When the city needed to widen a bridge in 1925, Amsterdam moved two fully grown plane trees rather than fell them. Residents near Leidseplein had objected loudly enough that engineers floated the two trunks on rafts and winched them several meters sideways, roots and all, to clear space for a new roundabout. A century later both trees have more than doubled their girth: each now measures over seven meters around, the thickest trunks in the city. A small wooden woodcutter figure, carved by an anonymous sculptor in 1989, sits astride one tree appearing to saw off the very branch supporting it. When that branch actually needed removing around 2020, city gardeners moved the sculpture to the other tree rather than let the joke become true. Amsterdam has since proposed the pair for national monument status, an unusual honor for something that is, after all, still just two street trees that once got in the way of traffic planning. They stand a two minute walk from Leidseplein's trams and taxis, indifferent to both.