The tree limb that struck a hot dog vendor near the Museum of Natural History earlier this month came from a tree inspected only days before the incident, according to the city Parks Department.
The pin oak, located at West 77th Street and Central Park West, is part of a grove outside the museum in Theodore Roosevelt Park. It also stands beside a line of food vendors.
“This park was inspected in early September and there was no indication that the tree required further inspection or visual defects spotted prior to the branch falling,” a Parks Department spokesman said.
The spokesman said the tree falls under Parks Department jurisdiction, meaning routine pruning would typically be carried out by city forestry crews or a contractor. “If a defect was identified, which it was not, forestry staff would have inspected and addressed the concern as soon as possible,” he said.
The tree was most recently pruned in October 2017 during routine work performed by a contractor, the spokesman said.
The number of trees inspected by the city dropped 33%, from 88,000 in fiscal year 2025 to 59,000 in fiscal year 2026, which ended June 30, according to the Parks Department spokesman.
The branch broke shortly after noon on Sept. 11, landing on an unidentified vendor working at a Nathan’s Hot Dog cart.
The FDNY confirmed that emergency responders transported a person struck by the tree to Lenox Hill Hospital. Officials did not disclose the extent of the victim’s injuries.
Other vendors said the injured man was recovering at home.
Authorities have not released the victim’s name.
“They’re trees,” said vendor Mahmoud Saber, 51. “A big wind comes and that’s it. You never know.”
The incident comes after a couple whose infant daughter was killed by a falling tree branch in Central Park in 2020 secured a $13.75 million settlement involving the city, the Central Park Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Society and private tree contractors.
Michael Ricciutti and his wife, Karla del Gallo, had stopped outside the Central Park Zoo to take a photograph with their daughter, Gianna Ricciutti. A honey locust branch measuring 18 inches in diameter broke off from a point 25 feet above the ground, crushing del Gallo and the 6-month-old baby she was holding.
Gianna was pronounced dead at the hospital, while her critically injured mother remained in a medically induced coma for weeks.
“She didn’t get to call us Mom and Dad,” a weeping Michael told The Post on the first anniversary of his baby’s June 2010 death. “She can’t go to school. She didn’t get to take her first steps. So much was taken from her. Everything was taken from her.”
