{"id":408035,"date":"2026-08-16T10:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T10:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/408035\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T10:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T10:26:09","slug":"heres-why-the-west-gray-palm-trees-were-removed-in-river-oaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/408035\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s why the West Gray palm trees were removed in River Oaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"22<\/p>\n

22 palm trees on West Gray Street in River Oaks had been reduced to stumps as of Saturday, August 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Nathaniel Rosenberg\/Houston Chronicle\"22<\/p>\n

22 palm trees on West Gray Street in River Oaks had been reduced to stumps as of Saturday, August 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Nathaniel Rosenberg\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n

Strolling down a sunny block of West Gray Street <\/a>on Saturday afternoon, River Oaks resident Lennox Leighton couldn’t help but notice the thoroughfare lacked its typical, as he put it, “California-style” flair.<\/p>\n

Leighton, 48, who said he lives a few blocks away, was saddened to see that a\u00a0two-block stretch of palm trees<\/a> \u2014 between McDuffie and Woodhead Streets \u2014 had been removed, leaving 22 stumps and bare soil where others had stood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I love the palm trees,” Leighton said. “I don’t know why they moved them or cut them down, and what they did with them, but it’s definitely a loss to the area.”<\/p>\n

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He’s not the only one to miss the palms, which had formed an unbroken line in front of the historic River Oaks Shopping Center, providing an oasis of uniformity in a city known for its\u00a0unconventional\u00a0<\/a>streetscapes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As first reported by Chron.com<\/a>, the disappearance of the palms has caused a stir online, with commentators across Facebook and TikTok speculating about their absence and worrying they won’t be back in time for the Christmas season, when they are wrapped in glittering string lights.<\/p>\n

“They just hacked them down, and now they’re going to have to come in and tear them out,” Louis Holzer, 40, another River Oaks resident, observed. “And then planting new ones is going to be a pain in the ass. I’ll miss it.”<\/p>\n

But a business owner in the shopping center and the property manager confirmed the trees would return soon, though neither provided a timetable for the replacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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A spokesperson for Kimco Realty, which owns and operates the center, said the trees were cut down as part of an “ongoing replacement project,” similar to the landscaping project that temporarily felled several dozen palms on an several other blocks of West Gray last September. In that project, new palms were planted in time for the holiday season.<\/p>\n

\"22<\/p>\n

22 palm trees on West Gray Street in River Oaks had been reduced to stumps as of Saturday, August 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Nathaniel Rosenberg\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n

Inside the cool confines of The Antiquarium<\/a>, a framing shop in the mall, owner Jeff Meuschke said the business had been notified before the trees were removed last week, and that they should be replaced in the next couple of\u00a0weeks, according to the timetable he was given by property managers.<\/p>\n

Not everyone was as concerned about the trees’ absence. Meuschke,\u00a0for one, was surprised to hear that their absence had caused an online stir.<\/p>\n

“If I’m worried about the palm trees out front, then I’m losing business,” he quipped. “But it definitely changed the feel of West Gray when they went down.”<\/p>\n

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Several storefronts down, Bola A, who declined to provide his full last name, was more focused on staying cool in nearly triple-digit heat as he valeted\u00a0Teslas and Range Rovers at Italian eatery Zanti River Oaks.<\/p>\n

“I don’t live here, so I don’t really care,” he said, while wielding a handheld electric fan. “It looks nice, but it doesn’t really matter to me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"22 palm trees on West Gray Street in River Oaks had been reduced to stumps as of Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-408035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}