A friend of mine lives in the city, he's got a patio in back of his apartment, it's surrounded by 8 to 10 story tall buildings. Over the wall in the adjacent patio is a scary tree- an Atlanthus bean pole that is probably 80' tall, the top forks into 2 30' leaders which are regrowth from topping or storm damage. It would be a very dicey tree to take down as it is hemmed in everywhere by buildings etc and Atlanthus can be very crappy trees to deal with, not real strong. Ha, after you get it down, you'd have to carry it out in small pieces thru somebody's apartment. Like any tree guy, most trees I look at I see a plan to take em down. No part of me would want to climb this one.
Point being, NYC is chock full of tricky-ass trees to remove.