The city's oldest and most photographed tree, a red cedar long popular with visitors as well as locals in Stanley Park, has become too unsafe to remain standing, officials have decided.

Parks Board commissioners voted unanimously late Monday night to cut down the hollow tree, which is more than 1,000 years old, next month and install a memorial in its place.

The tree was badly damaged by windstorms that devastated much of the park in 2006.

"We are dealing with a tree that is dead and, unfortunately, its time has come," Commissioner Ian Robertson said.

Safety concerns overcame strong sentiment for sparing the tree, Commissioner Loretta Woodcock added.

"I think it would be an awful thing if the people of Vancouver woke up to hear that this tree ended its existence by falling on somebody and hurting them," Woodcock said.

Commissioners rejected a proposed $200,000 wire sling system to keep the tree standing. Park staffers said there was no guarantee that bracing the tree would keep it upright for long or enable it to withstand future windstorms.

"The question is really, is this a natural tree or is this a monument?" Woodcock said. "And do we want to make it an artificial monument or do we want to have a natural monument?"

Among those questioning the decision was Lynda Henderson, a local artist.

"The hollow tree just brings back so many memories of my kids," Henderson said. "Surely there's a way to preserve it."

A children's author, Duane Lawrence, said he planned to accompany fourth and fifth graders from West End Elementary School on a visit to serenade the doomed tree later this month.

The plan approved by the Parks Board is to slice the trunk down its length and use the two halves as walls, allowing visitors to walk between them to appreciate the tree's size and age. The memorial would be close to the site of the tree on the west end of the park.

In addition, a seedling would be planted in the remains of the stump.

People have posed for pictures with the tree for generations. One archive photograph shows a group in a horse-drawn carriage backed into the giant hollow trunk.

The huge cedar came close to being removed in 1910 because of road widening but was spared by a campaign led by a photographer who made his living snapping shots of people, horse carts and automobiles in the hollow.

Over the years, though, the opening narrowed.

"Now you couldn't even fit a Mini Copper inside the thing," said Joan Seidl, curator of history for the Vancouver Museum.

Seidl took a dim view of attempts to use cement to keep such trees from falling down.

"That's just so unnatural and ridiculous," she said. "It's a tree. It's not there for our entertainment."