. . . when a child sees lightning and hears the crash or discovers a shadow or stroke of sunlight in a corner lot somewhere that no one but he knows about . . . or when he hears a tree branch rustling against his window at night; when he sees a quick unknown thing zipping through the grass on a hot summer day. . . when he urinates against a tree and feels he is being watched by someone even though there is no one else around . . .
. . . how to create and heighten a sense of the mysterious, the unique, and the individually sacrosanct conception of things in an urban environment? In the city materials and construction methods are standardized and uniform. The shape of urban spaces is cubic and rectilinear and ordered. If we set ourselves the task of implementing urban street tree nurseries we must find a way to place these projects in the community consciousness. Everyone should feel that they have a hand in keeping the young trees safe. Children should be able to stray there by themselves; devise imaginary landscapes in which the nurseries are bastions or magic groves.There should be a sense of limnality; of crossing over or through, should one actually have reason to enter these groves. People should want to socialize there, to make assignations there or to meet as a gruop when a special circumstance arises and something needs to be shared in solitude. Where possible, the land itself should aid in emphasizing the nurturing care being extended to the trees here . . . the trees may be nestled in a cocoon or protected behind a living or obdurate fence . . . . but it is not the fence which keeps them from harm. The community as a whole recognizes that they like having such places as these nursery groves in their midst, and woebetide the miscreant or careless interloper who fails in that respect . . . .
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