Los Angeles is cutting down 400 mature trees so Space Shuttle Endeavour can be trucked from the airport to a museum. 400 trees!
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Space shuttle Endeavour's final 12-mile journey through the streets of South Los Angeles already promises to be a meticulously planned spectacle: a two-day parade, an overnight slumber party in Inglewood and enough hoopla to create a giant traffic mess.
But for some residents in South L.A., the excitement of the shuttle rumbling through their neighborhoods quickly faded when they learned that 400 trees will be chopped down to make room for the behemoth.
The California Science Center — Endeavour's final home — has agreed to replant twice as many trees along the route from the shuttle's docking place at Los Angeles International Airport to Exposition Park.
But that's not enough to satisfy some tree lovers.
"They are cutting down these really big, majestic trees," said Lark Galloway-Gilliam, a longtime Leimert Park resident and neighborhood council director. "It will be beyond my lifetime before they will be tall like this again."
Many worry that the replacements — young, wiry trees that will provide little shade — will pale in comparison to the mature magnolias that line the Crenshaw corridor. Others are concerned that the bare streets will further depreciate property values.
City officials and the science center are hoping the historical significance of housing the shuttle will offset the tree loss.
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