Tonight is the first of ten special Bar Car Nights at the Garden. The Holiday Train Show provides the backdrop for these special evenings, with the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory aglow with festive lights and a number of stations around the Garden, from live music to delicious food. Sip on a complimentary cocktail as you admire the glittering miniature city and enjoy the magical atmosphere. Tonight’s inaugural Bar Car Night is also the first event of our new LGBT@NYBG campaign. Tickets are still available for tonight’s event geared towards the LGBT community, as well as for tomorrow’s Bar Car Night. However, tickets for the most popular dates and events do sell out quickly!
As the Holiday Train Show® continues to delight visitors of all ages in its 23rd year, the latest Garden News provides an overview of what you can expect to find this year. View the video below, and click through for the full schedule of programs for this weekend.
Here’s a sneak preview of what awaits tonight’s guests for our first Bar Car Night of the season. Tonight is also the kick-off of our new LGBT@NYBG event series, and we cannot wait to welcome everyone to come enjoy the Holiday Train Show® by night. Tickets are still available for all ten Bar Car Nights, including tonight and tomorrow, so come celebrate with us!
From left to right: Councilman Andrew Cohen, Councilman Ritchie Torres, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Gregory Long, CEO and The William C. Steere Sr. President of NYBG
On Saturday, October 18, I was honored to host a Garden tour for the Speaker of the New York City Council, Melissa Mark-Viverito. Joining us were two Councilmen—Ritchie Torres and Andrew Cohen—whose Council districts include a part of the Garden.
The day’s schedule called for a golf cart tour through the grounds, viewing The Haunted Pumpkin Garden and Ray Villafane’s masterful carvings, taking in the elegant Kiku exhibition in the Haupt Conservatory, and touring much of the Garden’s historic permanent collections. In addition, the Speaker spent a good deal of time in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden learning about NYBG’s edible gardening program and the Edible Academy project soon to break ground.
This weekend is the culmination of NYBG’s Fall Forest Weekends! Winter will be here before you know it, so don’t miss your chance to come and admire our stunning fall foliage while enjoying a wide variety of seasonal programs and activities. Take a canoe through New York City’s largest remaining tract of old-growth forest via the Bronx River, see live hawks and owls, and watch a master woodcarver at work—whose handiwork will be for sale in the Shop in the Garden!
Next weekend will be the debut of all of NYBG’s winter programs and exhibits, including the 23rd year of the Holiday Train Show, so be sure to reserve your tickets soon before your preferred date sells out! In the meantime, click through for all the ways you can take advantage of peak color at NYBG!
The popular Bar Car Nights at The New York Botanical Garden are back, providing nighttime opportunities for adults to enjoy a special viewing of the Holiday Train Show®! Experience a true winter wonderland at the Garden while sipping a complimentary cocktail and indulging in roasted chestnuts and spiked hot cocoa.
This year there are twice as many opportunities to walk arm-in-arm along Perennial Garden Way and join friends under the twinkling lights of the Conservatory. Bar Car Nights are providing the perfect Friday and Saturday winter escape on November 21 and 22; December 5, 6, 19 and 20; and January 2, 3, 9, and 10 from 7 to 10 p.m.
NYBG’s trees are at 90% of peak color, jumping from 60% on Wednesday! Our Foliage Tracker has been going haywire this week as leaf season arrives in full force, just in time for the first of our Fall Forest Weekends. Autumn at the NYBG is at its most dazzling right now, and we have a full lineup of exciting activities to complete your experience of the colorful and serene woods. See live birds of prey, watch a master woodcarver at work, and even paddle a canoe down the Bronx River as you admire the Thain Family Forest from the best possible vantage point. Click through for the full schedule.
Don’t forget, The Holiday Train Show® opens for another year in just two weeks—November 15th! Tickets are available now for preferred dates going into the peak season, as well as for Bar Car Nights, so be sure to book as soon as you can for these popular events.
The Holiday Train Show at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory may have attracted record numbers of visitors this season, but just outside in the Conservatory Courtyard you’ll find four spectacular, 15-foot-high sculptures that are—in my honest opinion—not to be missed! And yet, some visitors may forget that the indoor attractions like the upcoming Tropical Paradise exhibition aren’t the only ones the Conservatory has to offer. Open the exterior doors on the side of the Palm Dome pool opposite the entrance and you’ll see the Four Seasons in all their winter (and spring, and summer, and fall) majesty. They’ll be there through March 30! For my part, I plan on visiting them regularly, because they not only represent the seasons of the year, but seem to constantly change moods depending on the weather and time of day.
The sculptures were inspired by the genius of Italian Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who came to prominence around 500 years ago. No matter your age, you too will be inspired by these pieces, especially when considering the work that contemporary artist Philip Haas undertook to transform them from paintings into monumental 3D portraits. They seem so alive that you might not realize they’re actually composite fiberglass representations of various plant materials, not dissimilar to the models of New York buildings in the Train Show, which use real plant parts to form famous architecture.
Like all good things, even the Holiday Train Show must come to an end, and this Sunday is your last chance to see this wonderful family exhibition until November comes around again. But that doesn’t mean the train fun is done! All Aboard with Thomas & Friends continues its run in the Ross Hall for several more weeks.
In addition, we have a few tours planned—including the always popular Saturday Bird Walk—to help you stretch your legs after hibernating during this week’s cold snap. And if your little ones have a serious case of cabin fever, bring them along for the last weekend of holiday family fun in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden!
So what’s next on our agenda? Starting January 18, take a trip to the tropics without leaving New York! That’s right, Tropical Paradise returns, along with the very popular Tropical Paradise Photography Contest. So grab your dusty old SLR and brush up on your techniques while you take in the last weekend of everyone’s favorite holiday event!
The clock is running down on this year’s Holiday Train Show, meaning there are only a handful of opportunities left for you to experience this most beloved of seasonal traditions! Our trains have made more runs than we can count, zipping about the rails that wind through dozens of iconic New York landmarks, and the season’s cocktail evenings and family events have been a delight to host. But “all good things,” and so forth. This Sunday, January 12, is your very last chance to stroll under the twinkling lights of the Conservatory before we switch gears for 2014!
That’s not to say we’re entirely done with the holidays at the Garden, though. All Aboard with Thomas & Friends is only just getting started, with fun-filled, sing-along performances scheduled through January 26. But tickets go fast! If you’re planning to join us with your kids for an adventure alongside that most famous of tank engines, make a point of registering early to ensure you get the time and date that you want.
And if you’re looking for a little time spent admiring the outdoors, winter is a better time to wander the Garden’s trails and collections than you’d think. Barren branches and the serene quiet of the Forest define winter’s charm—and it’s even better when the trees are dusted with snow. Now is also the ideal time to observe the punchy colors of winter berries painting the Garden, or the deep spectrum of greens showcased in our historic conifer collections.
