Straight answers on East McKeesport’s old street trees

A hilltop grid full of trees running out of time

First thing worth saying, because people get it wrong constantly: East McKeesport is its own borough. It is not a neighborhood of McKeesport and it is not across the street from it either. Different municipality, different hilltop, a good stretch of valley in between. When you call us, tell us the borough and we will know exactly which streets you mean, because the two places do not work the same and the trees in them do not either.

What defines 15035 for a tree crew is the tree lawn. Somebody laid this grid out with a narrow strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb, then planted it with Norway maples and pin oaks, and they did it all at roughly the same time. Those trees are now old. Not old in the way a park oak is old with another century ahead of it. Old in the way a street tree gets old, which is faster and rougher, because a Norway maple wedged into three feet of dirt with concrete on both sides and road salt every winter does not get to live out a full life. Sixty or seventy years in, they start closing up shop, and they tend to do it as a group because they went in as a group.

So a lot of what we do here is triage. Somebody calls about one tree, we walk the block, and the honest answer is that three of them need attention and they do not all need the same thing. That conversation is the actual value we bring to this borough, more than any particular saw work.

Deadwood this year, removal next year

Here is the version of that conversation we have most often. A Norway maple out front has a dead top and a couple of big limbs with no leaves on them, and the homeowner assumes it is coming out. Frequently it is not, or at least not yet. Clear the deadwood, take some weight off the long limbs so wind has less to grab, and that tree is safe to keep for a few more seasons while you plan for the day it does come out. That is a pruning job and it costs what a pruning job costs.

The opposite call happens too. A tree looks fine from the porch and has a soft spot at the base, or the root flare has fungus coming out of it, or there is a crack running up the trunk that somebody has been painting over. That one is on borrowed time whether it leafed out nicely in May or not, and pretending otherwise on a street this tight does nobody any favors. When the answer is removal, we say removal, and we say it in plain words standing in your driveway rather than burying it in a proposal.

What we will not do is tell you everything has to come out. That is the easy sale and it is a lousy way to treat a street. Some of these maples have real time left in them, and if yours is one of them you are going to hear that from us for free.

Wind on an open grid

Being on top of the hill costs you shelter. In a valley town the buildings and the terrain break up a gust before it reaches anything. Up here the streets run clean in both directions and a front coming through the Route 30 corridor hits the crowns without slowing down. That is why our storm calls from this borough are almost always limbs rather than whole trees. A hilltop maple with a heavy overextended limb and nothing to shield it will shed that limb before the trunk ever gives up, and it lands wherever it lands: a car, a porch roof, the wires along the alley, the middle of the street.

The fix is boring and it works. Take the weight off the ends of the long limbs before the season, pull the dead stuff out of the interior so there is nothing loose waiting to drop, and the tree flexes instead of breaking. Trees that have had that done stay standing through the same storm that takes a limb off the untouched one next door. We have watched it play out on the same block more than once.

And when something does come down at eleven at night, call (412) 526-2028 whenever it happens. We make the dangerous part safe first, photograph it where it landed so you have something to hand your insurance company, and clear the rest on whatever schedule works for you.

One more thing about this grid: there is no yard to drop a tree into on most of these lots. The houses sit close to the street, the tree lawn is three feet wide, and the open ground is the road. So the road is where the wood goes, which means cones, a spotter, short controlled pieces, and a closure that keeps moving instead of parking on your block all afternoon. We tell the neighbors the day before when we expect to be in front of their house. In a borough this size that courtesy is worth more than the half hour it costs.

The size of the place is actually the best part of working here. East McKeesport is compact enough that most jobs are a single day start to finish, and we schedule them that way on purpose. Truck arrives, tree comes down, chips and wood leave with us, the grinder takes the stump below grade the same visit, yard gets raked, and you get your street back before dinner. No staging equipment overnight, no coming back Thursday for the stump, no orange cones sitting out for a week. Same crew, same insurance, same standard we hold across Allegheny County, just delivered fast because on a hilltop this size there is no reason it should take longer.