Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.
Visitors of all ages have marveled at the sight of the monumental sculpture throughout the grounds of The New York Botanical Garden, where these works of art have stood sentinel since last spring. Moore in America, the largest exhibition of Henry Moore’s art ever displayed in a single venue in the United States, continues to attract praise from audiences and journalists alike, including Time magazine’s art critic Richard Lacayo, who named it one of the Top 10 Museum Exhibits of 2008.
Photographers, in particular, have been drawn to Moore’s captivating forms situated within the Garden’s historic landscape. In partnership with the International Center of Photography, the Botanical Garden hosted a photography contest in celebration of the landmark exhibition. The contest sparked many beautiful submissions, from which four monthly finalists were selected. From those four a grand prize was awarded, to Jimin Kim of Manhattan for his portrait of Large Reclining Figure. His winning image appeared in an advertisement for Moore in America in the December 4–10 issue of Time Out New York.
Runners-up included Julie Salles of Yonkers, Ken Schwarzof Lexington, Massachusetts, and Debra Allen of Pelham Manor. Their images, plus countless others submitted by garden- and art-loving shutterbugs during the months of the competition, showed how the sculpture could look fresh from different angles and with different lighting throughout the day and during the changing seasons, proving Moore’s desire to have viewers approach—and even touch—his artwork from different perspectives.
If you haven’t seen the exhibition yet, now is your chance. Moore in America is being extended through March 15. Even if you’ve seen it in spring, summer, or fall, now is your opportunity to see it in winter. Bring your camera and snap some pics for yourself while you’re at it!
Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.
Each day in the media we are made aware of the harm being done to the environment due to climate change, invasive species, overuse of natural resources, and clear-cutting of forests. Gardeners can make a difference—in the way they design and manage the landscape.
Today, Plant Talk introduces a companion blog, Green Perspectives: Tom Christopher on Sustainable Gardening, to offer gardeners solutions and ideas on how to help the environment. Veteran garden writer Tom Christopher has been gardening and writing for more than 30 years and is a graduate of NYBG’s School of Professional Horticulture. He will take you along with him as he explores, investigates, and tests different ways and methods of restoring Earth through our passion for earth.
The New York Botanical Garden, as a premier plant research and cultural institution, is working to address conservation concerns both here at the Garden and around the world. The Garden’s sustainability and climate change initiatives include improving operational efficiencies and energy use, reviewing horticultural practices, presenting educational programs and symposia, conducting biodiversity research, and providing scientific advice to conservation organizations.
To find Tom Christopher’s blog posts, click on the “Green Perspectives” tab above. Be sure to visit often and to share your comments. Let us know what has worked for you. Together we can make a difference.
The NY Times, TV, and Even the New York Lottery Charmed
Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.
The Holiday Train Show at The New York Botanical Garden has been a magical must-see for more than 1 million visitors over the past 17 years. Edward Rothstein of The New York Times called it “exhilarating,” marveling at “the wonders of this annual show” that presents “New York through a looking glass.”
David Hartman, popular television personality, produced and narrated a charming documentary about the Holiday Train Show, revealing how the structures are made from natural materials and displayed to the delight of visitors of all ages. The documentary aired last year 528 times across the country on 285 PBS stations.
In case you missed it, below is a clip of the show. You can catch the entire program tonight, December 11, at 10:30 p.m. on Channel Thirteen/WNET-TV. It will air again several times during December on PBS, including on WLIW-TV; check the online schedule. If you’re looking for a stocking stuffer or holiday gift for a loved one (or for yourself), the documentary is available on DVD at Shop in the Garden
After viewing the clip, you’ll see why the Holiday Train Show has been a sought-after location for singular New York events. That tradition again rang true last week when the New York Lottery awarded more than $17 million to two winners before replicas of the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, and others and to the delight of a festive crowd of visitors young and old that erupted into spontaneous congratulatory applause.
There have been other occasions over the years when Holiday Train Show visitors received an additional unexpected treat, including a marriage proposal between New York City police officers that was nationally broadcast on the Today show and a mayoral press conference that touted the wonders of the holiday season in New York. Amid the glow of twinkling lights in the Botanical Garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, the Holiday Train Show proved the perfect magical setting for these memorable events.
Make your own memories by coming to see the Holiday Train Show in person, through January 11, 2009. Tickets are available for purchase on the Garden’s Web site. See for yourselves what Mr. Rothstein in his review described as “this phantasmagorical landscape, which at twilight comes alive with illumination.”
George Shakespear is Director of Science Public Relations.
One of the pleasures of working at The New York Botanical Garden is meeting scientists from around the world and learning about their fascinating botanical exploration, biodiversity research, and conservation projects. The Garden is a nexus of international plant science, where scientists come to consult the incomparable collections in our herbarium and library, to confer with the Garden’s staff scientists, or, as happened the week before last, to accept a well-deserved award and to share information on current projects.
I attended the presentation by distinguished economic botanist and former Botanical Garden scientist Sir Ghillean (Iain) T. Prance on two current (and very different) projects. In the largest tract of rain forest in northern Argentina, he has been studying the ethnobotany of the Guaranà people, documenting their use of plants. The Guaranà are threatened by the expanding timber extraction industry. One result of his team’s documentation has been the purchase of more than 12,000 acres of land by the World Trust Fund to return ownership to the GuaranÃ. Sir Prance also talked about his systematic studies of Barringtonia, a genus of flowering plants.
Prance was in New York to receive the Gold Medal of The New York Botanical Garden. The medal, the highest honor conferred by the Botanical Garden and awarded very infrequently, acknowledges contributions made by individuals in the fields of horticulture, plant science, and education. Iain Prance served for more than a quarter century at the Garden, arriving as a post-doctoral researcher and departing as Senior Vice President for Science. In 1988, he returned to his native Great Britain to become Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1988–1999). He was knighted in 1995.
Prance is perhaps the most prominent scientist in botanical exploration of Amazonian Brazil and is vitally interested in the documentation of the use of plants by indigenous peoples in Amazonia. That led him to found in 1981 the Garden’s Institute of Economic Botany, whose programs continue to thrive and grow.
Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.
According to Technorati, the leading blog search engine, millions of entries are posted every day in the interconnected, online world of Web logs known as the blogosphere. As the world of journalism continues to evolve from the dominance of traditional print and broadcast media to the growing user-generated content of the Internet, The New York Botanical Garden has earned the attention of the growing new medium.
Many mainstream print publications are making the leap into the new digital frontier. One of the more popular blogs is City Room at The New York Times Web site, where Tina Kelley wrote about Kiku in a blog entry called “Shaping the Chrysanthemums, a Rare Art,” sparking some fun comments from the public. National Geographic’s News Watch blog posted a review by David Braun of Liverworts of New England: A Guide for the Amateur Naturalist, published by The New York Botanical Garden Press. (Order at 718.817.8721 or online.)
Journalists such as Bill Cary of The Journal News, garden writer Irene Virag, and many others have their own blogs. Even some of the Garden’s own staff have ventured into the blogosphere. Check out the personal journal of Chuck Peters, one of our top scientists, for some thought-provoking ruminations. Bookmark them all!
Looking for more? Check out OffManhattan.com, which describes itself as “a travel guide for native New Yorkers and tourists alike, in an effort to promote a ‘greener’ lifestyle,” or the popular BoogieDowner, a great portal for all wonderful things the Bronx has to offer.
There are blogs about art, like Studio-Online, which wrote about Kiku and Moore in America on October 27, and blogs about crafts, like Quaint Handmade, which also spotlighted the Garden in a glowing review about Kiku. Pick a topic and there’s bound to be someone out there blogging about it.
If you have a favorite blog or if you come across one that mentions The New York Botanical Garden, let us know about it. You can e-mail me or just post a comment below. The key to the explosive growth of the blogosphere, I believe, is the line of communication between fellow bloggers and the people reading them. So let us know what you think.
Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.
Art fans, rejoice! Moore in America: Monumental Sculpture at The New York Botanical Garden , the largest outdoor exhibition of Henry Moore’s artwork ever presented in a single venue in the United States, is being extended through January 11, 2009.
The show, a collection of 20 major pieces, opened at the Botanical Garden on May 24, during the height of the spring flowering season. It garnered critical acclaim from the media and the public alike during the summer months. Now nearly all of these magnificent works by one of modern art’s greatest icons can be seen during fall and early winter, providing audiences with the chance to experience the sculpture for the first time or return again to witness them in contrasting seasons. The monumental pieces are positioned throughout the Garden’s 250 acres and among its 50 gardens and plant collections, complementing the historic landscape during nature’s changing cycles.
The extension of Moore in America through the holiday season guarantees that visitors to The New York Botanical Garden will be able to enjoy the outdoor sculpture while simultaneously experiencing the Garden’s other major exhibitions—Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum through November 16, the Library gallery art exhibition The Chrysanthemum in Japanese Art through January 11, and the Holiday Train Show from November 23 through January 11. The Henry Moore Foundation, which is dedicated to furthering the understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of Moore’s work, is co-curating Moore in America with the Garden.
If you still haven’t had the chance to see Moore in America, now is the perfect time. And if you’ve seen it already, now you have even more time to see it again with friends and loved ones, discovering anew the combination of Henry Moore’s fine sculpture and the spectacular Garden settings in changing seasons.
Here’s a video in which Educator Anabel Holland tells us a little more about a few of the sculpture.
Sarah Richardson is Special Events Coordinator at The New York Botanical Garden. If, like me, you’re a Project Runway fan, then you saw the episode a couple of weeks ago that featured The New York Botanical Garden as the stunning location for one of the show’s fashion challenges—designing an outfit inspired by nature.
Finally, I’m able to tell the secret I held for over three months.
I knew this first-hand information since the end of June, when scouts for the immensely popular show contacted our Special Events office after viewing all the amazing images of the Garden on our Web site. They were looking for a place for a “Bravo reality competition show” (they hadn’t yet revealed to us which one) with colorful, abundant flowers and plantings, in combination with a landmark that epitomized New York. Of course, the Botanical Garden and our iconic Enid A. Haupt Conservatory fit the bill, and we were in business—show business, that is.
That’s also when they told us they’d be filming Project Runway, and I was sworn to keep things under wraps, so to speak.
Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.
Imagine my surprise this summer when I received a handwritten postcard from Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine.
The story began in June when I received a phone call from a visitor to The New York Botanical Garden who was delighted to discover in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden a white modern rose named after a friend. That friend happened to be Joan Fontaine, best known for her roles in the Alfred Hitchcock thrillers Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941), for which she won an Oscar. Ms. Fontaine also appeared in many other film classics from Hollywood’s golden age, including Gunga Din (1939), The Women (1939), Jane Eyre (1944), and Ivanhoe (1952).
I sent an image of the Joan Fontaine rose to the caller and was delighted to learn that she forwarded the photo to the legendary actress. Needless to say, Ms. Fontaine’s resulting note of appreciation made my day.
The episode inspired me to think of other roses named after celebrities. To paraphrase Peter Kukielski, Curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, walking through the Beatrix Farrand-designed beds is like stumbling upon a tea party of the famous. The soft apricot flowers of the ‘Marilyn Monroe‘ rose are near the deep pink blooms of another hybrid tea named after Elizabeth Taylor. Also nearby is the ‘Julia Child’ floribunda, the 2006 All-America Rose Selections winner, with its buttergold petals and licorice candy fragrance. Watching over them all with its double pink flowers is the hardy grandiflora ‘Queen Elizabeth.’
Other roses are named after artists such as ‘Rembrandt‘ Portland or the floribunda ‘Henri Matisse‘ or the standard rose ‘Auguste Renoir‘ or the ‘Audubon‘ shrub. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has at least two roses with his moniker, the Hybrid Musk ‘Mozart‘ and the climber ‘Amadeus.’ Famed scientists also have their rose doppelgangers, including Charles Darwin and Madame Marie Curie. And still other roses honor Amelia Earhart, George Burns, and Johann Strauss. Famous names pop out from the world of fiction as well, such as ‘Othello,’ ‘Falstaff,’ and ‘Betty Boop.’
The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden is a delightful destination full of surprises, with wonderful color and fragrance right up until the first frost of the season.
Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.
In the few months since its opening, Moore in America, the exhibition of monumental sculpture on display at The New York Botanical Garden, has generated quite a bit of positive media reaction. One of the highlights was Channel Thirteen’s SundayArts feature, which included the Moore exhibition as the lead story in its news segment.
Host Christina Ha visited the Botanical Garden and shared with viewers some of the 20 artworks by Henry Moore that are placed throughout the Garden’s 250 acres, including Reclining Mother and Child in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. The SundayArts program airs weekly on Thirteen/WNET-TV, the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut metro area. The program showcases local arts news about gallery and museum exhibits and world-class performances. Its Web site is rich with artist profiles, blogs, calendar listings, multi-media content, and more.
In addition to covering Moore in America, PBS has featured other stories about the Botanical Garden as well.
David Hartman later returned to the Garden for a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into making NYBG’s crowd-favorite Holiday Train Show, filming a documentary about Paul Busse and his team at Applied Imagination.
As the Botanical Garden continues to attract the attention of an ever-growing landscape of traditional and new media, public television continues to be a source of thought-provoking and engaging content not easily found elsewhere, sharing with its millions of viewers topics about education, science, culture and the arts, and much, much more.
Kate Murphy, a junior at Fordham University, interned in the Communications Department this summer.
The summer blockbuster has become as much a staple to the season as sunshine and warm weather. And this summer is no different, bringing a continuous buzz of “must-see” movies. If you can’t decide whether you’d like to spend an afternoon at the Garden or at the movie theater, why not combine the two?
The 250-acre enclave in the Bronx has played host to many film shoots due to its convenient location, its beautiful grounds, and the lush interior of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Following is a list of movies featuring scenes at the Garden. Rent a few of them and see if you can spot NYBG!
Autumn in New York (2000), a sad, romantic film starring Winona Ryder and Richard Gere, utilized the Botanical Garden’s colorful autumnal grounds.
Age of Innocence (1993), a period piece chronicling the love triangle of three 19th-century New York aristocrats, also has scenes that featue the iconic Haupt Conservatory. The movie stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, and Daniel Day-Lewis.
Other films shot at the Garden include Awakenings (1990), starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, and The Seven-Ups (1973), starring Roy Scheider.
If, like me, you’re a 
In the few months since its opening, Moore in America, the exhibition of monumental sculpture on display at The New York Botanical Garden, has generated quite a bit of positive media reaction. One of the highlights was Channel Thirteen’s SundayArts feature, which included the Moore exhibition as 
The summer blockbuster has become as much a staple to the season as sunshine and warm weather. And this summer is no different, bringing a continuous buzz of “must-see” movies. If you can’t decide whether you’d like to spend an afternoon at the Garden or at the movie theater, why not combine the two?