The English Elm of Farragut Lawn

Madison Square Park is probably younger than two of its trees. The park was officially designated in 1847, and the two English elms on Farragut Lawn are believed to be older than that: over 200 years, by the reckoning of the Conservancy that runs the park, which is careful to say believed. When Ignatz Pilat redesigned the park in 1870, he kept them. That they are still here is the remarkable part. Dutch elm disease is the reason English elms are now rarely planted in the United States, the Conservancy notes, so a pair that has stood through the whole life of the park, in the middle of Manhattan, is rarer than it looks from a lunchtime bench. In 2023 the Conservancy nominated one of them for NYC Parks' Great Tree Search, and it went onto the city's Great Trees list in 2024. Here is our honest gap: we do not know which of the two it is. They share the lawn at the south end of the park, and nothing we have been able to read says which trunk carries the designation. Our pin marks the lawn, not a tree. If you can tell them apart, or know which one the city listed, tell us and we will point at the right one. Until then, stand between them. Nobody has published a girth or a height for either, so a tape measure would be welcome too.