What is the oldest tree in New York?
New York City's oldest tree is very likely the Queens Giant, a tulip tree in Alley Pond Park estimated between 350 and 450 years old by different measures, old enough to predate the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam entirely. It stands in a wooded section of the park in eastern Queens, reachable on foot from the Douglaston Long Island Rail Road station.
The Queens Giant's claim to being New York City's oldest living thing rests on measurement rather than legend. At 133.8 feet, it is the tallest carefully measured tree in the five boroughs, and tulip trees of that height in undisturbed forest are reliably centuries old; the New York City Parks Department states it is at least 368 years old, while some arborists place the range as wide as 350 to 450. Either figure puts its germination before the 1664 English takeover of New Amsterdam, and some local accounts connect trees in this stretch of Alley Pond Park to 17th century land dealings between the Dutch West India Company and the Matinecock people who lived here first, though no source ties this specific trunk to a documented transaction. What is not in question is that it has spent its entire life essentially unmanaged, growing in what is now protected forest rather than a planted garden, which is rare enough in New York that the Parks Department calls it possibly the oldest living organism in the metropolitan area. Getting there: Douglaston station on the LIRR Port Washington line, then a short walk into Alley Pond Park's wooded trails.
The yew, the oaks and their peers across other cities are collected in Europe's 10 Most Remarkable Ancient Trees.