A concrete hand that has wrapped around a dying tree trunk at Palmer Square Park for eight years is gone. The Chicago Park District removed the trees connected to two art pieces at the Logan Square park after inspections found the structural integrity of the art trees had decayed because of weather and other natural forces, and artist Carrie Fischer pulled the Helping Hand sculpture from its base last weekend.
The sculpture, located at Palmer Square Park near 2200 N. Kedzie Blvd., had become a quiet fixture of neighborhood life, according to Block Club Chicago. Dozens of neighbors reportedly stopped Fischer as she worked to ask why she was removing it, the outlet reported. The Helping Hand was part of the citywide Chicago Tree Project, which began in 2014 as a collaboration between the Chicago Park District and Chicago Sculpture International to turn dead or dying trees into three-dimensional public art, as Block Club Chicago reported back in 2018. The piece itself was a large concrete hand wrapped around a tree trunk, originally envisioned alongside oversized Emerald Ash Borer beetles, according to ABC7 Chicago.
A Neighborhood Pushes to Bring It Back
Neighbors now hope to bring the Helping Hand back, and Jay Mathur, a member of the Palmer Square Advisory Council, has started a campaign to raise $30,000 by the end of 2026 so the artwork can return permanently. The sculpture may return to a location that has not yet been determined, Mathur said, per the same report. Campaign funds would cover art supplies, transportation and insurance, he said.
Mathur has lived near Palmer Square Park for five years and started the Palmer Bar Runs weekly run club three years ago, a group that traditionally met by the Helping Hand sculpture. He has made hand-related merchandise for the run club and is now collecting community feedback and help from its members on the sculpture's future. Neighbors have asked Mathur and Fischer how they can help bring the piece back, the report noted.
“It’s eye catching, creative, it stands out; I like when a piece of art makes you just stop,” Mathur said, describing the sculpture's pull on passersby. He added that he wants the piece to remain in Logan Square and live on in the community, and said raising more than $30,000 could even enable a bigger and better project than before.
Repairs Underway Through the Winter
The Helping Hand is now being repaired at Fischer's studio, and she hopes to complete the work over the winter. Fundraising and the search for a permanent location will continue while those repairs happen, she said. The sculpture could eventually be shipped to a new destination, or it could return to the neighborhood if enough money is raised and the Park District signs off, according to the report.
Fischer said the neighborhood's deep connection to the sculpture came as a surprise to her and has become a source of inspiration as she works on its restoration.
Trees Reaching — and Exceeding — Their Limits
The removal fits into a larger wave across the city. The Chicago Park District once had 54 creative tree projects district-wide and is removing 16 of the remaining 21 art trees citywide by the end of 2026, according to Irene Tostado as cited in the same report. Art tree projects were originally expected to last two to five years, per Tostado's account, though almost all of them exceeded that expected lifespan.
That estimate differs somewhat from an earlier figure: a 2015 report from CBS Chicago said the sculptures were expected to survive three to five years in their artistic state, and that at the time, 11 had been completed with five more in the works. Chicago Sculpture International has said it brought a total of 63 tree projects to the Chicagoland area in 2025, and its own records show seven sculptures, including ones at Palmer Park, were deinstalled in 2024. The group's current exhibition listing for Palmer Park now features a different piece, “Cardinal (for Lynn)” by Suzanne Knecht.
The program took root in part because of a tree disease crisis: ash trees were reported to make up about 17% of Chicago's street tree population, according to Hyperallergic, which also noted that five trees carved by artist Kara James in Lincoln Park in 2014 were still standing as of a 2017 report. For now, Palmer Square Park's hand is off its perch, and whether it ever returns to Logan Square depends on how fast the neighborhood's fundraising — and the Park District's approval — comes together.
