The Queens Giant

This tree was already centuries old when New Amsterdam was still a Dutch trading post, and unlike almost everything else on this list, nobody planted it. At 133.8 feet the Queens Giant is the tallest carefully measured tree in New York City, a tulip poplar growing wild in a stretch of Alley Pond Park's forest that has never been cleared, and the New York City Parks Department dates it to at least 368 years old, with other estimates ranging as wide as 350 to 450. Tulip trees can live 600 years and reach over 150 feet under ideal conditions, and this specimen's height alone marks it as one of the oldest living things in the entire New York metropolitan region, likely older than any building, monument or institution in the five boroughs. Some local histories connect the surrounding land to 17th century transactions between the Dutch West India Company and the Matinecock people who lived here before European settlement, though no source confirms this specific tree witnessed any documented exchange. It has simply kept growing, in a park most of the city drives past on the Long Island Expressway without knowing it is there.