One of the two prominent green draws to our fair homeland, Humboldt County’s bigger-than-yours redwoods can sometimes be taken for granted by those of us who zoom past them on our way to work each day. But, did you know, some people fantasize their whole lives about taking an eco-pilgrimage to hang out amongst tallest living things on earth? Man, maybe we should go look at those more. So enchanting are our treasured forests that some green-thumbed artist just went ahead and made a miniature version to live in Brooklyn, which seems like cheating, but OK. 

For his Lost Man Creek public art piece, artist Spencer Finch meticulously recreated a 790-acre section of Redwood National Park at 1:100 scale for a 4,500-square-foot installation now nestled within the New York cityscape. (Construction photos below.)  

According to a release form the New York-based Public Art Fund, Finch collaborated with the Save the Redwoods League utilizing topographical and canopy height maps to precisely render a mostly inaccessible forest filled with redwood trees ranging 98 to 380 feet tall as an urban art garden featuring nearly 4,000 young Dawn Redwoods ranging a mere 1 to 4 feet tall. A specially designed irrigation system will ensure that the trees remain healthy in their city home over the installation’s duration.

Lost Man Creek is set to open at MetroTech Commons in Downtown Brooklyn on October 1, 2016 and will remain there through May 13, 2018 at which point the trees will be rehoused. For more on the efforts of Public Art Fund, they have a website. For more on artist Spencer Finch, he’s got one too.