Rustin Dwyer is Visual Media Production Specialist at The New York Botanical Garden.
Even pushing 65 years old, he’s still the lovable little engine who just wants to play in the field. In honor of our annual Holiday Train Show, Tootle the Train™ , the star of the classic Little Golden Book, has pulled into Botanical Garden station for a series of performances at the Janet and Arthur Ross Lecture Hall.
The show runs on most days, so be sure to check the website for dates and times.
It seems hard to believe, but the holidays really are just around the corner. We love the holidays here at The New York Botanical Garden. The holidays mean the return of one of New York City’s most cherished family traditions,The Holiday Train Show in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. It also means the arrival of beautiful new goodies at the Shop in the Garden, and on the Shop’s website. The selection of gifts in the Shop this holiday season is all about favorites, but they’re not just ours. We’re inviting some of the Garden’s most stylish, culinarily-minded, crafty, and green-thumbed friends to share a few of their favorite things with you!
So, take a spin around the Shop, whether in person while you’re visiting the giant pumpkins this weekend, or virtually. And if you happen to spot something that you’d like to call your favorite, you can use the “Tell A Friend” feature to give Santa a gentle hint.
So watch this space to see what some of your favorite bloggers will be giving as gifts this holiday season!
In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite things.
Plates, check. Forks, check. Pizza, check. Candles, check. I’d just finished assembling all the necessary items for the weekend’s party. The brisk early winter morning was a flurry of preparation for Taylor’s 4th birthday celebration here at the Garden. Excitement was building as party guests began to arrive.
First, Taylor and his friends were taken on a private journey through the exhibition at the time, the Holiday Train Show. With whistling train conductors leading the way, the kids chased the locomotives zooming along tracks and across bridges. Next, the group zigzagged through the wild rain forest in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, where they found their favorite plant of all, the cacao tree—this was a chocolate-loving bunch. Afterward, the group was led to the Conservatory GreenSchool for the rest of the festivities.
Master Puppeteer Brings Children’s Storybook to Life
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.
