“There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people all it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree that struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps. It is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly . . . Survives without sun, water, and seemingly without earth. It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.”