Unter Den Linden, Lancaster, PA

In Albums: trees

Aug 4th, 2002, by Alex Zorach

Unter den Linden is a famous street in Berlin, the name meaning under the lindens, referring to linden trees lining the street. I like to call this street, Hillside drive, in Lancaster, PA, "Unter den Linden". This photo shows Hillside drive looking west, just after its beginning at Gordon road. I have been to the actual Unter Den Linden in Berlin, and...it does vaguely resemble this street when you look up, although really only because of the linden trees.

This street is located in a suburban neighborhood west of the city, located in Lancaster Township (and thus school district) but outside the city limits.

The street is lined with European linden trees. There is a separate species of American linden, which I actually like much better than the European ones, but American lindens are rarely used as a street tree, and actually, do not tend to grow very well in urban areas.

European lindens have a very distinctive, gently curving shape that produces a unique look when you view them from below on a street...it creates a cozy, dome-like appearance, similar to elms but more rounded. The overall shape of Lindens however is very different from Elms; elms branch out with a single trunk at the base and many different branches higher up, spreading out in a vase-shape. Lindens maintain a straight, single trunk which is rather bulky even higher up on the tree, and have numerous moderate-sized branches which arch gently off the trunk.