Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on November 29 2012, by Matt Newman
Don’t overlook the desert houses when you visit the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory for the Holiday Train Show. It may not be conventional holiday beauty, but it’s undeniable nonetheless.
Mammillaria huitzilopochtli — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Holiday Train Show on November 28 2012, by Matt Newman
As the Holiday Train Show ramps up, we’ll be highlighting the cultural landmarks of New York City that have come to inspire our many miniatures, as well as the established organizations behind each one. It’s an opportunity for our readers to not only come away with a fresh understanding of the beautiful architecture in our city, but of the important institutions that have helped to create our rich cultural landscape.
What would become the world-renowned Jewish Museum did not begin as such. C.P.H. Gilbert, a prominent New York architect of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, designed this building as a private home for the family of Felix Warburg in 1908. Gilbert’s specialty was designing grand, chateau-style houses on Fifth Avenue for wealthy New York patrons like investment bankers Warburg and Otto Kahn, and entrepreneur Frank Woolworth.
Posted in Around the Garden on November 23 2012, by Matt Newman
Hope everyone had a filling, drama-free Thanksgiving! And now, if you’re not rolling around in a turkey-induced malaise, or elbowing your way through a mob of frantic shoppers, there’s all the opportunity in the world to scoot your way up to the Bronx and escape that post-holiday madness! The NYBG is open both today and throughout the weekend, with a full schedule of holiday programming and late fall explorations on deck–and not a sink full of dishes or shopping cart in sight. Quite the opposite, in fact.
With the Holiday Train Show now entering its second week, crowds are still small and the weather is perfect for a trip to the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Inside, our miniature city of familiar architecture and zippy model trains is growing by the year, with fresh New York landmarks added to the collection and a few stunning wonders of the world tucked into our expanded Artist’s Studio. Paul Busse has pieced together this meticulous world over the course of more than two decades, and his New York microcosm only continues to grow with his imagination.
Outside, the Garden is still a landscape painted with the occasional fall hue, especially in the Forest. So get out there and join our expert Garden Tour Guides for a tour of the 50-acre woodland, the only old growth, native forest remaining in the five boroughs. You might even catch a few vibrant leaf displays before autumn doffs its hat. And even if much of the color is drifting off, not all of the season’s beauty is wrapped up in the trees: heads up for the many graceful, singsong, or just plain comical flyers to be seen cruising the branches during Debbie Becker’s weekly Bird Walk.
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on November 21 2012, by Matt Newman
To all of our friends scooting out of town for the coming holiday weekend, have safe travels! And to those of you staying in the city for this Thanksgiving, don’t forget that our Holiday Train Show is up and chugging right along in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. See you soon!
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on November 19 2012, by Matt Newman
As promised, a peek at one of the international miniatures from the Busse Collection, now on display in the Holiday Train Show‘s Artist’s Studio. Can you guess which pyramid this is?
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on November 17 2012, by Matt Newman
The Holiday Train Show goes live to the public today, complete with some new miniatures you won’t want to miss. From the classic to the quirky, Paul Busse and his team at Applied Imagination haven’t lost their touch.
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Around the Garden, Programs and Events on November 16 2012, by Matt Newman
I took an aimless jaunt around the Garden yesterday to see what the birds were singing about. Of course, I rarely have a goal when I set out, and this was no different. I checked to see whether the trees had given up all of their fall color (they haven’t), and if the NYBG‘s wild turkeys were still tottering around without care for man, beast, or passing Garden tram (they are). In the Forest, breezy reds and yellows still clung to many of the trees, and there was that pervasive, comforting sense of autumn isolation to wrap yourself up in. But what’s going on by the Visitor Center can only be called a holiday hubbub.
I saw winter-bare trees wrapped in strings of lights, wreathed benches, and a conifer display primped and preened, anxious for someone to come along and flip the switch on its own light show. And further down the path, just outside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, I picked up on the telling twinkle of the season’s defining event: the Holiday Train Show! Horticulturists, model makers, and toy train aficionados have kept their noses to the grindstone for weeks, making sure that each elevated track and glowing window is left perfect for the thousands of New York fans ready to pour through those Conservatory doors. And because there are new models to be seen this year, the challenge was that much greater. But, as always, it’s worth the work they put into it to see so many grins.
Posted in Exhibitions, Holiday Train Show on November 16 2012, by Ann Rafalko
The Holiday Train Show is just the beginning of the holiday fun at the Botanical Garden.
New this year, a world of buildings from Applied Imagination, the creative force behind the buildings of the Holiday Train Show. In the expanded Artist’s Studio, kids of all ages will have the opportunity to peer inside the inspired artistic process that goes into creating each meticulous miniature, along with the myriad plant-based ingredients that make them up.
In more train-related fun, the classic tale of The Little Engine That Could™ will be told through puppets, and after the New Year, Thomas the Tank Engine™ and friends will be at the Garden to help celebrate the arrival of 2011. (For a full schedule, click here.)
Posted in Programs and Events on November 13 2012, by Matt Newman
We’re seeing a lot of countdowns, lately. Fall is drawing to a close, the IGPOTY submission deadline is on the horizon, and we’re pipping off the days until the opening of the Holiday Train Show. Near at hand, we’re also staring down the November 21 close of 2012’s Greenmarket season; tomorrow–Wednesday, November 14–marks the penultimate chance to get your fresh fruits, vegetables, baked goods and cheeses before our vendors close up shop until next summer. And why, oh why, would you choose to skip out on fresh eats?
I didn’t think you would!
Last week’s menu was stuffed with fresh-from-the-oven goodies by both The Little Bake Shop and Meredith’s Bakery (you’ll find a reliable herd of staffers making a mad dash for the whoopie pies each Wednesday morning). Chocolate croissants, cupcakes, cookies, fruit pies, and plenty of freshly-baked breads took center stage, while Migliorelli Farm’s apple cider donuts weren’t exactly flying under the radar, either.
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on November 11 2012, by Matt Newman
Less than a week now, everyone! The Holiday Train Show is rounding the bend…
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen