Cait McCarthy / The Forgotten Heroes of Broadway

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It’s easy to mindlessly walk through the city without looking a single person in the eye. It’s easy to glide through the streets as they blur by you in a monotonous gray tone. It’s easy to not care a single drop where you are as long as you get where you’re going. But lately, I have found it all so difficult. The weather has gotten reasonably colder, the breeze a little brisker, the sun weaker by the second. And the leaves on the trees have been changing. Yes, I said trees – in New York, too.

For the past month, I have spent everyday passing by a beautiful park that screams of a photo-op on my way to rehearsals at Baruch. One day, I brought my camera along with me so the scenery would finally stop yelling at me. Ever since, I’ve found beautiful scenery in the strangest of places.

When people think of New York, they don’t think of maple trees and grass. They think of the cement scenery, the brick backdrop of grim, overbearing buildings. It’s not easy to stop and smell the roses, especially if you can’t even find them behind the skyscrapers.

But if you keep an eye out, they are everywhere. Pots of flowers litter the pedestrian plaza on Broadway; scant little trees brave their way onto every street, squished between No Parking signs and bus stops; and before you know it, you’re not in the concrete jungle anymore. You’re in an urban forest.

The pictures taken were many and far between, but it is hard to catch the melancholy attached to these beautiful, lonely trees. First, I dabbled with the idea of documenting the life of one simple tree on Lexington Avenue. He quietly looked on as countless passersby and taxis whizzed past him, not giving him a second glance. I situated myself in a doorway of the building directly across, and stood by as I watched what he got to watch every day.

But then I took another look around, and realized that there were more trees that wanted their limelight as well, and it would be selfish to not give them their fifteen minutes of fame.

Each one felt like a ghost of The Giving Tree, saddened by its uselessness as it stayed put while the surroundings paid no notice. But each tree was different, and had a different view of the city, and its own painfully lonely story to tell. But in their misery blossoms a tragic beauty all in its own. Although they long for attention, they still have a regal presence that cannot be denied.

The misplacement of all these creatures brings an interesting light to the contrast of their environment, and how they adapt. Or rather, how they cannot adapt. On none of these city streets I roam do I see a fully-bloomed, growing, healthy tree. More often than not, I see twiggy, lanky, poor little trees that are fighting their best to grow.

So, I believe it is their time to shine. These lost souls have been ignored long enough, and have long paid their dues. They have seen more of the city than anyone ever will.

I have split the collection in two parts: the first, of many trees and scenes of foliage found across the city; and second, of the loneliest tree of them all.