Arboreal Abecedary (2003)

In consideration of trees we lost / In midtown Kansas City / At the edge of the Roanoke chasm / On Southwest Trafficway / From 31st to Westport, I propose an Arboreal Abecedary.

Imagine this as a fence channeling pedestrians to safe crossings along a dangerous midtown freeway and as public art replacing the trees that were planted in the median, but that did not survive.

The trees are “remembered” by silhouettes ten to twenty feet tall (shown here on an exaggerated topographical section), on a stretch of trafficway which is one and one half miles long. For the abecedarium game, match the common name of a tree to its outline and to its location. A key exists in the park at Z.

a is for ash, b is for…