Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Plant Talk
Posted in Exhibitions, Holiday Train Show on December 23 2009, by Plant Talk
The tree is trimmed, the stockings are hung, and it’s time to enjoy the holiday weekend. Join us at the Garden and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the Holiday Train Show.
Gingerbread Adventures has activities for the whole family, including gingerbread houses from the city’s most imaginative bakers.
The Little Engine That Could™ Puppet Show has daily shows from December 26 through January 1 at 1, 2, and 3 p.m.
Don’t worry about the chilly weather; the trains are winding through palm trees and tropical greenery in the Conservatory, and there is hot chocolate, cider, and a variety of holiday treats at the Garden’s two Cafes.
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Posted in Exhibitions, Holiday Train Show on December 22 2009, by Plant Talk
Also Savor Special Seasonal Holiday Fare and Treats
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David Sanchez is General Manager of Abigail Kirsch at The New York Botanical Garden. |
No doubt you’ve noticed a few changes in the Garden’s two cafes in recent weeks. We listened to you, our customers; incorporated your suggestions; and added some of our own thoughts on how to create a sense not of eating but of dining. As the new General Manager of Abigail Kirsch at The New York Botanical Garden, I bring the commitment of Abigail Kirsch to offering fresh food, great service, and appealing variety.
The transformation has included…
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Posted in Exhibitions, Holiday Train Show on December 18 2009, by Plant Talk
Sculptor Takes Us Behind-the-Scenes Building the Botanical Replicas
Sculptor Annette Skinner has worked on the Applied Imagination team since 1992.
Memories of travels, saved in a giant box. The twisty stick, obscure seed pod, shapely leaf quietly await the next decisive moment. If lucky, my boss, Paul Busse, will require my sculptural eye for the intriguing job of creating another scale model of a historic building. These varied natural objects possibly will become a banister, urn, or portico.
Paul, designer of the Holiday Train Show, (see the two of us in the photo at right, courtesy of Judy Glattstein) has a unique concept that requires integration of the natural world with traditional G-scale model railroad layouts. His highly dimensional, textural interpretation is populated by finely detailed versions of American art and architecture. Each year The New York Botanical Garden adds to its collection of New York landmarks, and I have been helping on these starting with Poe Cottage in the early days. This year’s newcomer, Penn Station, took staff at Applied Imagination over 1,1,00 collective hours to complete. Also new this year is the Brooks Brothers flagship store, LED lights on the Yankee Stadium replica, and an audio of lovely organ music by Paul’s son, Brian, accompanying the St. Patrick’s Cathedral replica.
Most of Paul’s designs are drawn in a studio he shares with his wife, Margaret Duke, in northern Kentucky. His drafting table overlooks a stream, reflecting the flow and curves of his blueprint sketches for track assembly.
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Posted in Learning Experiences on December 17 2009, by Plant Talk
Groundbreaking Speakers Challenge Traditional Ways
The life of a gardener is filled with many “Aha!” moments. But when I opened the NYBG Fall/Winter Catalog and turned to page 62, to the winter gardening lecture series lineup of speakers, it was not an “Aha!” moment but rather a “Wow!” moment. Three names jumped off the page: Dan Pearson, Barbara Damrosch and Fritz Haeg. From the Ground Up: Gardens Re-Imagined is the perfect name for a series featuring this rabble-rousing trio.
In the forward to Dan Pearson’s new book, Spirit: Garden Inspiration, Beth Chatto writes, “Dan Pearson shows how the most intimidating situations can be transformed. It takes a rare mind and eye to break away from our traditional view of what makes a garden…” Dan’s also a great plantsman, as I well know, but that’s not why I’m going to his lecture on January 21. I am going because I know that Dan will challenge my notions of order, color, and texture.
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Posted in Exhibitions, Holiday Train Show on December 16 2009, by Plant Talk
Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.
We asked some of our Members for their most special holiday experience at The New York Botanical Garden and they told us—and sent photos, too.
Here are a few of our favorites. Oh, and please keep sending us your stories. We’d love to hear from you and post your wonderful experiences at the Botanical Garden to our blog.
A Yearly Tradition
For several years Barbara Moran has taken family and friends to see the Holiday Train Show and other facets of the Garden. But on her recent visit she was surprised that one of the staff “engineers,” Christopher, remembered her from last year and greeted her warmly. “I wondered what I had done to stand out in his mind,” Barbara wrote. “He is one of the reasons why I continue to return: a friend happy to have me back. I was born in the Bronx, and though I’ve lived most of my life in a small town in Connecticut, the Bronx always welcomes me back and greets my family and friends like treasured guests.” That’s one of the highlights of the Garden and nearby Belmont neighborhood, she continued. “Thank you all for the hours of joy and fellowship I have enjoyed while visiting our beautiful gem of the Bronx, the Botanical Garden. I look forward to many more visits.”
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Posted in Science on December 15 2009, by Plant Talk
Part 2 in a 3-part series
Read Part 1
Worldwide trends notwithstanding, the chief concern of our William and Lynda Steere Herbarium management team on a daily basis is not the decline in the use of natural history collections, as reported in a New York Times article this summer, but rather how to keep up with the needs of all our users.
Scientists use the Steere Herbarium to answer the most critical questions about plant diversity, namely: How many species are there? How are they related to one another? What environmental factors control their growth? Given that plants supply most of the food, fuel, shelter, and medicines for the earth’s population, predicting how these organisms may respond to climate change is one of the most pressing questions for scientists today.
Visitors are sometimes surprised that most of the scientists who use to the Herbarium are still doing the fundamental work of documenting the Earth’s biodiversity. “Don’t we know all the species yet?” some have asked. The answer is “No, not by a long shot.” Estimates are that we know only about 75 percent of the world’s plant species and less than 10 percent of the species of the fungi, the two major groups of organisms represented in the Herbarium collections.
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Posted in Wildlife on December 11 2009, by Plant Talk
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Debbie Becker leads a free bird walk at the Garden every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. beginning at the Reflecting Pool in the Leon Levy Visitor Center.
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It’s that time of year again, when all the deciduous leaves have fallen and the bare tree limbs leave exposed the birds of the Forest. As you walk the Forest path you are reminded of the Native Americans who used the Forest as hunting grounds—along the trail by the Bronx River you will even pass the Bear Den, a cave believed to have been used by Native Americans while hunting.
One of the most elusive figures in the NYBG Forest is the great horned owl, a large bird with tuft-like ears, cat-like eyes, and sharp claws. It is a monster of a bird, and it is the most sought-after species on our weekly walk.
Native Americans believed their deceased loved ones’ souls passed into the bodies of great horned owls. The owl was sacred to them and never hunted. Today we still hold the owl in reverence. It is a majestic, elusive creature that conceals itself in conifers during the day and hunts at night.
We’ll likely see this bird during our annual “unofficial” Christmas Bird Count tomorrow, in which we document the numbers of species and individual birds we see from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (The official Christmas Bird Count of the National Audubon Society, the 86th Bronx-Westchester Count, which includes the Botanical Garden, is on Sunday, December 27. Audubon conducts other counts over a three-week period all over North America and beyond.)
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Posted in Exhibitions, Holiday Train Show, Programs and Events on December 10 2009, by Plant Talk
Master Puppeteer Brings Children’s Storybook to Life
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Ralph Lee, a master puppeteer, adapted the story and created the puppets for The Little Engine That Could™ Puppet Show at The New York Botanical Garden. Photo of Ralph Lee by Brett Vermilyea |
In the fall of 1995, I was asked by The New York Botanical Garden to create a show for children as a companion program to its annual Holiday Train Show. So I asked myself, “What children’s story has to do with both trains and the holiday season?” The Little Engine That Could™! It had been one of my favorite stories as a kid.
I fashioned locomotives for the trains in the story using cardboard as the primary material, wood for strength, and a lot of found objects—things you might see lying around the house—for details. These would give each train its own face as in the illustrations of the original storybook: the Broken Down Train, the Streamliner, the Big Strong Locomotive, the Rusty Dusty Dingy Engine, and of course, the Little Engine That Could. I also made small puppets to represent the toys that are being delivered to the other side of the mountain: a teddy bear, Raggedy Ann, some dancing dolls, and a monkey.
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Posted in Shop/Book Reviews on December 9 2009, by Plant Talk
Authors of Old Penn Station History and Children’s Tale Visit
John Suskewich is Book Manager for Shop in the Garden.
A replica of the late, great Pennsylvania Station is new this year in The New York Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show. I remember that building at the end of its life. My family used to go by train to Philadelphia to visit my aunt who was actually born in Russia and scared us kids by removing her false teeth. Penn Station seemed like a ruin even when it was intact. It was grim and grimy and as you got pulled downstairs and yanked down corridors, it loomed overhead like a cliff or a cave. During demolition the building sat on its city block with broken columns and cornices and clocks hanging in midair like Valhalla after the gods had left.
The rendition of Pennsylvania Station that designer Paul Busse has created for the train show imagines it as it was in its heyday and is impressively colossal even at reduced scale, with bark colonnades, acorn capitals, pine cone clocks, and sugar-water windows.
In Old Penn Station, author William Low traces the history of the great depot from its inception as a monumental gateway to Gotham to its glory days as a transportation hub and its decline and destruction in the name of progress and profitability. His muscular, colorful illustrations, lit like an elegy and pictured from every conceivable angle, bring this fallen monument to life and will turn even a tot into an ardent preservationist.
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Posted in Exhibitions, Holiday Train Show on December 8 2009, by Plant Talk
| Start your Holiday Train Show experience in the Palm Dome of the Conservatory, where you’ll find expanded features this year. In the beautiful reflecting pool is the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, as in past years, but now a model train runs past an island featuring the Roosevelt Island Lighthouse and the Lott House. Also in the gallery are other NY landmarks such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral, this year augmented by an audio track of organ music.Also new to this year’s show:
Pennsylvania Station (1910–1964), “could be our most exciting building yet,” says designer Paul Busse. At 20 square feet, it certainly is the largest building replica in the show. The original building was demolished under controversy 46 years ago to make way for the fourth incarnation of Madison Square Garden. This year you can view the intricately detailed replica of this historic train station, constructed from plant parts like honeysuckle and birch bark.
The Brooks Brothers flagship store is added to the popular midtown Manhattan vignette in the Holiday Train Show. Founded in 1818 as the first ready-to-wear fashion emporium in America, Brooks Brothers is the country’s oldest clothing retailer. Our replica is crafted from beech, red willow, and lotus stems.
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