By ANDY GARDNER

POTSDAM -- A tree iconic to many Potsdam youths, which has been a part of the Leroy Street landscape for a century, is coming down.

The tree is in front of Dan and Jane Hurley’s 63 Leroy St. home, which they say local day care and elementary kids named “The Happy Tree.”

Dan Hurley said about 15 years ago, he bought from a magazine a face sculpture designed to decorate a tree, which turned it into a local mascot.

“Since then I don’t know how many people walked by … stopped, laughed, or grinned,” he said, adding that kids who used to attend the daycare on nearby Castle Drive “would stop and talk to the tree.”

“They’d go over and hug it, sing to it,” he said.

He said the arboreal friend made a lasting impression on those who interacted with it.

“Some of the kids now are teenagers or adults … they’ll talk to us about ‘The Happy Tree,’” Dan Hurley said.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Jane Hurley said.

The tree survived Dutch elm disease during the epidemic decades ago, but the tree got infected with it over the summer, leading to the village’s decision to cut it down.

Dan Hurley said they knew something was wrong when it started dropping leaves in July.

“The village in September said it had to go,” he said, adding that it’s in the village right-of-way, not his land. “I hate to see it go, but I know it should.”

“It makes you kind of sad,” Jane Hurley said.