Tree to Be Landmark

Harvard students may not show much concern for uprooted trees in the Yard, but a group of 30 Cambridge residents is out to save a 203-year old beech tree on Massachusetts Ave. from the bulldozer's path.

Calling themselves the Friends of the Beech Tree, the Cantabrigians have petitioned city officials to prevent a local builder from destroying the rare tree to make way for a new office building between Harvard and Central Squares.

One third of the 50-foot wide crown would be destroyed and the whole 55-foot tall tree would die if the Boston-based developers, Spaulding and Slye, build within a few feet of the site, area residents say.

Earlier this month, the Cambridge Historical Commission recommended that the Copper Beech tree, located across from the Orson Welles Cinema, be declared a significant landmark in the area. A final decision rests with the Cambridge City Council.

"The developers have known what the people in the neighborhood want for that tree, and they've just hoped that we'd go away," said Marilyn Z. Wellons, the founder of the Friends of the Beech Tree. "They've tried to tell us that the building can be built according to plans and the tree won't be destroyed."

If the tree is declared a landmark, then Spaulding and Slye will have to taylor its building plans so as to preserve the tree's crown and roots.

The Mass. Ave. specimen is the only survivor among three beech trees originally planted by Henry Houghton. A major figure in early Cambridge history, Houghton was mayor in 1782 and president of the Houghton-Mifflin Publishing Company. Wellons said that Houghton's colonial Cambridge home was torn down by a developer for MIT in 1975.