Morning Eye Candy: Tools of the Trade
Posted in Holiday Train Show, Photography on November 15 2011, by Ann Rafalko
The bridges are up, and the trains are here, but you can’t have the Holiday Train Show without a quarter-mile of tracks!
Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Posted in Holiday Train Show, Photography on November 15 2011, by Ann Rafalko
The bridges are up, and the trains are here, but you can’t have the Holiday Train Show without a quarter-mile of tracks!
Posted in Behind the Scenes, Holiday Train Show on November 9 2011, by Ann Rafalko
Inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, preparations for the opening of the 20th year of the Holiday Train Show on November 19 (November 18 if you’re a Member) are in full swing.
Posted in Around the Garden, Holiday Train Show on November 7 2011, by Matt Newman
Honey bees still clung to the last of the chrysanthemums in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory as workers hurried about the business of change this past Friday. The shuffling of displays marks the end of our successful Fall Flowers of Japan exhibition, and while it was saddening to see the carefully-trained beauty of the ‘Thousand Bloom’ ozukuri exit stage left, the transition from ancient gardening artistry to a beloved family tradition can only mean the beginning of one of our most anticipated yearly events.
Production began on our 20th Holiday Train Show over the weekend, an undertaking that’s a bit like watching a Norman Rockwell painting as it first meets the canvas. The Conservatory space was only vacant for a moment before the sights of New York began appearing in miniature, springing up along the walkways and setting the stage for a quarter-mile of tracks, well-known bridges, and over 140 familiar city landmarks. And this busy activity continues as we speak!
Posted in Photography on January 9 2011, by Plant Talk
It’s the last day of the Holiday Train Show. When you’re in the Palm Gallery checking out this year’s new building, the famous TWA Terminal at JFK Airport, be sure to look up. It’s pretty amazing up there, too.
The dome of the Palm House in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Photography on December 28 2010, by Plant Talk
When you visit the Holiday Train Show, be sure to visit the other houses. There’s so much to see.
Papyrus in the Aquatic Plants House, Enid A. Haupt Conservatory (photo by Ann Rafalko)
Posted in Photography on November 18 2010, by Plant Talk
The Holiday Train Show is almost here! We had a press day on Tuesday and the Member’s Preview is Friday, but you, our loyal readers, get an exclusive sneak peak. Please help us welcome Eero Saarinen’s iconic Trans World Airlines Terminal (now known as JetBlue Terminal 5) at John F. Kennedy International Airport to the Palm Gallery in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory!
TWA Terminal and Jet (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Exhibitions, Holiday Train Show on October 19 2010, by Plant Talk
Ann Rafalko is Director of Online Content. |
The holidays are fast approaching, and with them comes the cherished New York City tradition of the Holiday Train Show at The New York Botanical Garden.
All the old favorites will be here: the original Yankee Stadium, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Belvedere Castle, Pennsylvania Station. But there always has to be something new under the glittering dome of the Conservatory!
So this year the Botanical Garden and the workshop of Applied Imagination are adding some planes to our trains with the iconic Eero Saarinen-designed Trans World Airlines Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The modernist masterpiece (now known as JetBlue’s Terminal 5) comes complete with tarmac, runway, and several airplanes including the Concorde.
Posted in People on December 16 2019, by Matt Newman
Congratulations to all of the young writers who submitted poems to this year’s Young Poets contest, and the winners who joined former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins for December 15’s annual reading. You’ll find their poems on display here at NYBG through the end of the Holiday Train Show.
Posted in Garden News on April 25 2019, by Plant Talk
Starting April 29, the iconic dome of the 117-year-old, glass-and-steel Enid A. Haupt Conservatory will undergo restoration in accordance with routine maintenance and operations of the Garden’s facilities. The great Conservatory, the centerpiece and symbol of NYBG, is the preeminent existing American example of the crystal palace glass-and-steel school of design developed in England and Ireland in the mid-19th century. It is the most important glasshouse in the country and one of the most beautiful in the world. Shortly after the Garden’s founding by eminent botanist Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife, bryologist Elizabeth Knight Britton, the Board of Trustees authorized the building of the Conservatory, which has required constant maintenance and repair due to the tenuous balance of glass, wood, and metals subject to the heat and moisture required by indoor plants and the constantly changing external weather conditions of New York.
Posted in History on November 28 2018, by Stevenson Swanson
Stevenson Swanson is Associate Director of Public Relations at The New York Botanical Garden.
Of the more than 175 New York landmarks in this year’s Holiday Train Show®, it’s particularly appropriate that Rockefeller Center’s soaring Art Deco skyscraper and other well-known features are included in NYBG’s annual display of building replicas made of bark, leaves, and natural materials. More than 200 years ago, a botanist-physician named David Hosack established one of America’s first public botanical gardens on Rockefeller Center’s site, cultivating rare and important plants on land that is now home to America’s most famous cluster of skyscrapers, shops, galleries, and, during the holidays, a towering, glittering Christmas tree overlooking the bustling plaza.
Dr. Hosack’s life and the story of his pioneering botanical garden are the subject of American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic, by Victoria Johnson, which was a non-fiction finalist for this year’s National Book Award and was recently named one of 2018’s 100 most notable books by The New York Times Book Review.
Born in colonial New York City in 1769, Hosack came of age as the young United States began to establish itself. “It fell to Hosack’s generation to build the civic institutions that would guarantee the future health and prosperity of the Republic,” writes Johnson, a Hunter College professor who conducted much of the research for her book at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library and William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, both of which have important collections of original Hosack material, including some of his preserved plant specimens.