I did a report a few years ago on the trees on MLK as part of my geography degree. I generally muster up MORE anger at the fact that they that they have been taking out the nice big trees in wide medians and putting in little trees in the 30" median, on a state highway that is regularly driven by stupid and/or drunk people, in order to put in on street parking for cars. Basically that is the worst place you could put a tree and have it survive, house move or no. So the fact that they took out a few more little trees is just salt in the wound, that wound being the big trees they took out on the wide medians, which CANNOT be replanted there because there isn't room.

I don't know... Did they really have to chop them down? Couldn't they have just dug them up, and then put them back a few hours latter?

I totally agree with Kyle,
that could have tried to
move them, they were
small..

Once trees are in and the roots are established you might as well kill them if you're going to move them -- it's one and the same. Of course one thing that makes the MLK plantings even more special is that they run a plywood box several feet down around them so the roots can't go anywhere, e.g. under the roadway, even though they specifically pick varieties of trees for streets that won't buckle streets and sidewalks (that's why you see a lot of sweetgums planted in Portland years ago, but no more). The city forester told me specifically about the MLK trees that it was like putting them "in a coffin".