Four stories tall and 5 feet in diameter, the American elms shading West Palmer Boulevard in Logan Square are among the few in Chicago that survived a blight that denuded other city streets some 50 years ago.
Dutch elm disease claimed millions of trees from the 1960s to early 1980s, but the five survivors arching over the sidewalks across the street from Palmer Square Park avoided the fatal fungus, or the chainsaw crews that rushed to take down trees before they got sick and fell on their own.
