Yves here. As most readers know, outside Central Park, Prospect Park, and arguably Madison Square Park, the city is pretty sterile. There are times when the trees on the side streets have enough color so as to be striking, such as when the green leaves start to grow in the spring, in the fall when the ginkos turn yellow (regardless of how vibrant the rest of the fall color change is) and of course, when the cherry trees flower. The idea of being on cherry tree duty in the spring is appealing.
Sadly, I was never in Japan during sakura season, when local TV broadcasts the progress of the sakura line, as in not the train service but the progress of the first bloom of the cherry trees across the country.
By Lilly Sabella, a spring 2026 editorial intern for THE CITY. Her work has appeared in the Nashville Banner, the Legislative Gazette and The Oracle. Originally published at THE CITY
As cherry blossoms bloom in the beginning of April, the idyllic promenades of Roosevelt Island transform into catwalks. Visitors travel to the tiny island to capture the fleeting beauty of the flowering trees overlooking the Manhattan skyline — and their own portraits, for Instagram.
Crowds wearing their best outfits flash wide smiles under the pink and white blooms there to view and be seen with the more than 100 cherry blossom trees that bring a brief flurry of activity to the typically quiet island. But amidst the fervor for the best pictures, some visitors turn the trees into props.
“They like to snap the flower off the tree, or I’ve actually seen someone take a branch off,” said Jennifer Engstler, who has lived on the island for 23 years. “I’ve seen people crawl on the trees like kids, or they hang from them. It just — it drives me crazy.”
Engstler is the island’s resident behind the initiative to safeguard the trees, where volunteers in neon pink vests and sunglasses patrol the rows of cherries to intercept people shaking, pulling down or snapping the branches to bring down the blooms.
“You can put all the signs up in the world that you want,” Engstler said. “I think a majority of the people are respectful, but you only need a few people to ruin a tree.”
When people shake and pull at branches, they could break off limbs, weaken the tree or speed up the flowers’ expiration date. Touching and rattling them leaves fewer petals for others to enjoy. Instead, visitors should let the brief springtime blooms happen untouched, and the petals fall on their own, experts say.
The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, the quasi-state agency that manages the island,took Engstler’s idea and launched the Petals Protector Initiative, bringing it back for this spring season after it received positive feedback from residents, said RIOC communications director Bryant Daniels.
“On Roosevelt Island, people are very invested in their neighborhood and doing their part to keep the island special,” he said. “We want to make sure we are protecting the cherry blossoms for future generations.”
The Island’s ‘Living Treasures’
Volunteers in their bright uniforms stroll for two-hour shifts, handing out “protect the cherry blossom” fliers that include a map of the island’s trees and a QR code to its local businesses. As a thank you, they can keep their reflective pink shades when done.
According to Daniels, 26 people have signed up to protect the cherry blossoms this year.
Petal Protector Romeo Cayanan, 67, who has lived on the island for 10 years, said the cherry blossoms were its “living treasures.”
The brief time the trees bloom motivated him to do what he can to preserve them. “It’s only like for two weeks, so we have to enjoy them,” Cayanan said, “and it’s free!”
Another volunteer, Kavita Rani, 31, had never seen cherry blossoms before this season. She moved to the United States from India nearly three years ago, but as a new Roosevelt Island resident, this is her first time living where cherry blossoms bloom.
“It was so dead,” she said, “and suddenly it’s so beautiful.”
The Petal Protectors THE CITY spoke with said most of the island’s visitors behaved around the blossoms and listened when asked to look, but not touch, the flowering trees.
“I realized that people really get excited when they see such a beautiful plant,” Rani said. “Sometimes, in their excitement, they would touch the blossoms.”
But when Rani would politely ask transgressors to stop, she said, “I didn’t expect that it would be so easy.”
To her surprise, she told THE CITY, “people were really receptive.”
Zell, an Astoria resident, used a tripod to take pictures and videos of himself beneath the trees on a recent weekday, donning a kimono the same shade as the petals swaying over his head.
“I just really like cherry blossoms,” he said, having lived in Guam, where he made frequent trips to Japan, another famous cherry blossom hotspot. “I grew up with a fondness for them.”
The Protector Pledge
Although trees are blooming throughout the five boroughs, Roosevelt Island is the only area in New York City with people trained to safeguard the blossoms. Elsewhere in the country, however, those efforts have budded.
Volunteers sign up to preserve the cherry trees exist in New Jersey and on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
“We have found that educating visitors in best practices for taking care of the cherry trees is the best way to ensure their longtime health,” said Mike Litterst, chief of communications for the National Mall and Memorial Parks.
The campaign includes encouraging people, especially children, to take the cherry blossom protector pledge:
“I will protect the trees
For they cannot speak
I will take pictures
Not blossoms
So they may remain
For you and me
And for the future”
“Kids especially get into it,” Litterst said. “A lot of them take it to heart like they’ve been deputized. They yell at adults who are picking at the blossoms and dragging at the tree branches.”
A Boom in Visitors for the Blossoms
The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation hopes visitors explore beyond the cherry blossoms when they come to the island.
“Roosevelt Island has great public space, and right now the cherry blossoms are the stars,” said B.J. Jones, Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s CEO. “But there’s so much that the island offers,” he said, including a memorial to the reporter Nellie Bly — namesake of THE CITY’s own beloved pigeon, by the way.
As the Corporation encourages tourism, residents like Engstler are forced to grapple with the influx of visitors on the serene island she calls home.
“Our island has become a lot more popular,” she said. “It’s beautiful. I understand why people want to come here.”
The slice of land between Queens and Manhattan has been overwhelmed in the past by flocks of people travelling to appreciate its blossoms.
But as long as the cherry blossoms bloom, visitors are bound to flock.
“This is our first time coming here,” said Jackson Heights resident May Cabonong, beaming as her friend snapped pictures of her under the trees — keeping an appropriate distance from the petals themselves.
“We heard from our friends that this area is the most beautiful.”
