About us

Save the timbers NYC is a non-profit organization working with contractors, real-estate developers, NYC agencies, and owners to study, repurpose and rehabilitate timbers from historical buildings in the Greater NYC area. Reclaimed woods are a versatile material, increasingly popular for interior design, furniture, and crafted objects. They are a limited resource with unique qualities of beauty, history, and contributions to sustainability. The broad spectrum of active demolition/renovation projects in NYC provides a foundation of scientific research and rehabilitation of old-growth woods. However, there is no citywide requirement for preservation of these timbers.

Our mission

Our mission is to salvage and preserve a relic of the old growth forests for dendrochronological research (i.e., tree-ring science), public awareness, and rehabilitation. After repurposed, the timbers are distinguished in their detailed provenance and dating, design partnerships, and social outreach mission, transforming a salvaged material which could have otherwise been sent to a landfill into a value-added product with heirloom potential.

Our history

Save the timbers NYC was founded by Mukund Palat Rao, Milagros Rodriguez-Caton, Caroline Leland, and Columbia University’s Tree Ring Laboratory (CU-TRL) in partnership with Alan Solomon the co-founder of Sawkill Lumber LLC. Our scientific advisors are Dr Edward Cook and Dr Rosanne D’Arrigo. In just one month since its founding in January 2021, we have salvaged and dendrochronologically provenanced timbers from three historic buildings built in 1832, 1890, and 1909, that are being demolished or renovated.

Members

Co-founders

Mukund Palat Rao

Mukund Palat Rao is an Ecoclimatologist studying interactions between climate change and natural and human ecosystems using tree-rings and remote-sensing.

Milagros Rodriguez-Caton

Milagros Rodriguez Caton is an environmental scientist. She uses tree-rings to understand and reconstruct climate and its impacts on natural ecosystems.

Caroline Leland

Caroline Leland is a researcher and educator in Earth Science. Her research involves using tree rings to understand past environmental conditions.

Alan Solomon (Sawkill Lumber)

Alan Solomon has spent a life in salvage, starting with a family scrapyard in Boston and is currently the co-owner of Sawkill Lumber LLC in NYC.

Scientific Advisors

Edward Cook

Dr Edward Cook is co-founder of CU-TRL and is an expert in quantitative studies of tree rings. His continental scale drought atlases have been fundamental to our current understanding of earth’s hydroclimate over the Common Era. He has many years of experience in the tree-ring dating of historical structures in the greater New York area.

Rosanne D’Arrigo

Dr Rosanne D’Arrigo is an accomplished scientist known for her insightful, rigorous, and original contributions to the development of high-resolution paleoclimatology. She produced some of the first paleoclimate records validating widespread climate change and global warming.