Two weeks ago, Ann Taylor wanted to save a towering cottonwood tree by Burlington's waterfront so badly that she chained herself to it and urged passers-by to call the mayor.

City officials said the tree had to go as part of a project to widen and improve the Burlington Bike Path. In a narrow right-of-way by railroad tracks, there was no place to move the trail, the city said.

This morning, contractors cut down the tree. "I was very close to tears," Taylor said afterward, sitting by the stump with her dog, Bode Miller. "I, in a way, had been saying goodbye for two weeks."

She said she'll always "have a vision of it being present and being a gift for us."