Happy Friday! It’s nearly the weekend, which means we’re just one day away from the opening of the Holiday Train Show. Here’s a little heart puddle to brighten your day.
The Bright Side of a Rainy Day (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Sure, we know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet (somebody better tell Ms. Turkey here to go into hiding for the next few days), but that doesn’t mean we can’t start getting festive here at The New York Botanical Garden!
Friday marks the unofficial start of the season here at the Botanical Gardens when members are invited to take a sneak peek at the amazing Holiday Train Show.
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!
Rustin Dwyer is Visual Media Production Specialist at The New York Botanical Garden.
Thanksgiving is almost upon us and that means one thing at The New York Botanical Garden: The Holiday Train Show is coming!
The artists and craftsmen from Applied Imagination made their annual journey from Kentucky to set up and decorate an array amazing botanical creations and model trains. Right now, they’re busy inside the recently renovated Enid A. Haupt Conservatory They’re putting the finishing touches on in time for opening day this Saturday!
Join director of exhibitions Karen Daubmann for a quick tour of the making of the Holiday Train Show.
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.
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.
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.
Celebrating the Season and Looking Ahead to Our Spring Exhibition
Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.
Garden staff members have been busy learning all they can about Emily Dickinson and her poetry in advance of the Botanical Garden’s spring exhibition, Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers, May 1–June 13, 2010. We take note wherever and whenever we see her name.
So when we saw in a datebook, by chance, a gingerbread recipe by Emily Dickinson, we decided to blog about it, since the Garden currently is presenting Gingerbread Adventures in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden as part of the Holiday Train Show.
With a little digging around I learned that Dickinson had a bit of a reputation as a baker in her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. In fact, she was particularly known for her gingerbread (and Rye and Indian bread), and would lower a basket of it to children below (photo by Lewis S. Mudge, courtesy of his estate), according to Emily Dickinson: Profile of the Poet as Cook, with Selected Recipes, by Nancy Harris Brose, Juliana McGovern Dupre, Wendy Tocher Kohler, and Jean McClure Mudge, and published in 1976. We have a copy of this 28-page booklet in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, where in spring 60 objects that tell the story of Dickinson’s life will be on view in the Rondina and LoFaro Gallery. (Complementing this will be a re-creation of her garden in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and a poetry walk throughout the Garden’s grounds.)
My intention was simply to post the recipe here, with permission from Jean Mudge, and let you try it out for yourself. However, I got caught up in the “everything Emily” mood, and to celebrate her 179th birthday (December 10), I decided to try making the recipe myself to share with co-workers.
I’m Back at the Garden; Please Come Visit—I Can’t Wait to See You
Thomas the Tank Engine™ is an annual visitor to The New York Botanical Garden.
Hello everyone! It’s Thomas, and I want to tell you about my next exciting destination—The New York Botanical Garden! I pull into the station on January 2 to welcome all the children who visit each day through January 10.
I see so many smiling faces every year during my visit to the Holiday Train Show. I sometimes wish I were small enough to wind through the miniature New York landscape made of sticks and leaves and pine cones like the trains in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
At the Garden I have a very important job of meeting families at the Ross Lecture Hall and posing for photos with lots of boys and girls. Remember to bring your camera!
Sir Topham Hatt will travel with me to make sure we are right on time and that everything runs smoothly while we have fun at the Holiday Train Show. We’ve brought treats like stickers, tattoos, and coloring sheets to share with all our friends. Everyone can earn these and become honorary engineers when they come and see me.
The tree is trimmed, the stockings are hung, and it’s time to enjoy the holiday weekend. Join us at the Garden and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the Holiday Train Show.
Gingerbread Adventures has activities for the whole family, including gingerbread houses from the city’s most imaginative bakers.
Don’t worry about the chilly weather; the trains are winding through palm trees and tropical greenery in the Conservatory, and there is hot chocolate, cider, and a variety of holiday treats at the Garden’s two Cafes.