Do you know why it's falling down?

That may affect the choices for replacement. If the soil condition is causing the falling, maybe something must be corrected first.

good point. it hasn't bloomed too well the last couple of years - late season killing frost and zilch on the maintenance/fertilizing. this year, we've had lots of winter rain so we thought its lean was increased due to the soil instability. (it had been leaning before, just not so much). by pushing on the leaning trunk, we are able to heave the entire root ball. we pruned out the branches touching our neighbor's roses which helped stabilize the tree for now. we won't really know until we pull the whole thing out - which we don't want to do until we have a replacement in mind. we are in an area of underground springs and the soil adjacent and downhill from the trunk is always damp.

I thought the slope would be enough to assume "well drained soil" but maybe I need to be thinking of plants that can tolerate some moisture.

your ideas or webpage search sites are most welcomed!

Usually, dogwood won't wiggle loose like that.

Is the yard, one that is fairly new construction, like a home in 30 year old neighborhood?

Some recent developments have had soil compacted subsurface, by equipment driving over soil or through mud. It can make a compaction pan / layer. You may know for certain if you dig the tree out and find harder soil conditions below.

The Jap. maple sounds decent. Honestly, if the soil is not bad, if a Jap. maple would fit there, so would another dogwood. How about a tricolor beech with pink, red and cream?

my poor dogwood has been there for 20 years. no big changes to the landscape except the pines/cedars have gotten big over the years.

thanks for the tricolor beech suggestion - it looks great on the internet pictures I found. I'll go check it out in the nursery. any other ideas?