(Ed note: Local resident Tom Burnett writes the following op-ed, with the hope to share thoughts about an old tree that he loved — and what it means to be a good neighbor.

Every day on my way to work I pass a beautiful, enormous black walnut tree in a back alley of Petworth. It stands watch over our rowhouses like a gentle giant, residing here since before our neighborhood was built over a century ago. Its trunk is so stout that it would take two people to wrap their arms around it.

To my horror, on my way home this week, I observed a work crew hauling away its decapitated branches, leaving nothing but a twelve foot tall stump in the ground.