In the spirit of a greener Gloucester, just wanted to add an FYI: It is well documented that the cause of street tree death is often methane gas leaks. The crack in sidewalks may indicate a condition also causing a gas leak maybe? So until a gas pipe leak is identified and fixed, any new tree planted at Porter prob. has no chance of survival. Even small gas leaks are deadly to plant roots apparently. In fact, a chronic gas leak near my home on Cliff Rd. killed a huge old rose bush by the road recently. (It just suddenly died while in full bloom. I thought it was from last year's road oversalting, but maybe it was methane poisoning.) You can read this great article for more info: https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2015/11/27/gas-leaks-a-hidden-culprit-for-dead-trees/

Regarding the gas killing trees. (I am not a crackpot.) Did you know that Brookline and Arlington Ma are suing the Gas company for tree deaths cause by methane leaks? https://arlington.wickedlocal.com/news/20180726/guest-column-gas-leaks-causing-tree-deaths-in-center

The dead tree was removed on 11/6/2019. The tree was a replacement to a 40 year old locust tree that had grown too large for the tree well and began causing cracks in the concrete sidewalk. The new tree did not thrive in the urban environment of Main Street. We will be replacing the tree that was removed this spring.

Thanks for the update! I really appeciate hard work of DPW Gloucester. Definitely locust trees are an excellent choise for urban areas. If anyone is interested in seeing a picture of this area and that dead tree formerly residing there, here's a picture I found at Google, taken 2018. There are gas lines marked right next to the tree in yellow btw.)

Thank you for reporting this issue to us.