Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.
As a kid growing up, just a few blocks from here, the only time I got to see model trains in action was occasionally during the holidays when the boy in the apartment across the hall would invite my three sisters and me to see—briefly and no touching allowed—his miniature landscape all set up with little people and trees and trains that could be glimpsed as they made their way around make-believe villages. I was younger and shorter and had to stand on tiptoe to try to get the full effect of this tabletop other world. Regardless, I always got a sense of something fun and magical happening.
My husband confirmed this. One of three boys and with a slew of neighborhood buddies, he talks of spending hours during the holidays watching and playing with model trains, moving around at will the tiny figures and buildings and ice rinks and track segments within the diminutive fake-snow-covered scenery.
Not until I was an adult did I have the chance to be immersed in the enchanting atmosphere that is so reminiscent of this childhood memory, thanks to the Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show. I’ve come back to see the show several times over the years and with family members both young and old.
There is something indescribable, something that makes your heart jump a beat, when you enter the Holiday Train Show and are immediately surrounded by twinkling lights, soft whistles, and tracks that wind around waterfalls and across overhead bridges and past magnificent replicas of New York landmarks. On closer inspection, you see that each of these 140 or so buildings is made from parts of plants! And as you bend down to investigate further, all of a sudden you glimpse a train approaching and stand back to watch the scene in awe. You look around and are beckoned by other vignettes; it keeps going. You are transported.
The Holiday Train Showhas gained wild popularity in its 17 years. Now that I work at the Garden, I have the benefit of seeing the show even during lunch breaks. My favorite time of day, though, is at dusk, when the show is especially charming and festive. This year the Garden will be open an extra hour on select days so you can enjoy the show well into the evening.
There is plenty to do, too, if you’d like to spend an entire day at the Garden: Gingerbread Adventures in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden; The Little Engine That Could™ puppet theater performance and a visit by Thomas the Tank Engine™ both later in the run; lunch and snacks at our two cafes, and holiday gift-getting at Shop in the Garden.
Some think the “G” in the Holiday Train Show‘s G-scale model trains stands for “Garden,” but it’s actually “groß“—German for “big!”
From trolleys to commuter rail, subway cars, and freight, our G-scale models bring the Holiday Train Show to life with some of the largest trains and track you can get. Here you’ll find a few of our favorites, including steam locomotives and diesel engines, and everything in between. Do any of them look familiar to you?
From dueling pianos and ice carving to the hottest culinary offerings from the Bronx Night Market and a variety of seasonal cocktails, come see what you’ve been missing at these adults-only evenings at the Holiday Train Show. New tickets were just released for Friday and Saturday night—join us!
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.
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.
While the genius of Applied Imagination is on display in the Holiday Train Show, there is an equally captivating exhibition of plant architecture just steps away in the Deserts of the Americas Gallery in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. This is just a sampling of the hundreds of cacti and other arid-land plants on display. Don’t touch!
Stevenson Swanson is Associate Director of Public Relations at The New York Botanical Garden.
30 Rockefeller Center in the Holiday Train Show
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.
On Sunday, November 20, NYBG held its annual Community Holiday Open House and Menorah and Tree lighting ceremony. Aaron Bouska, NYBG’s Vice President for Government & Community Relations at NYBG, welcomed the audience, which included many members of the Bronx community as well as several elected officials with their families.
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
One of the great things about being on Garden staff is the opportunity, twice each year, to access the grounds when they are closed to the public—namely during our exhibition staff orientations. The first one happens before the summer exhibition (like Frida), and the second takes place ahead of the Holiday Train Show. I usually arrive about an hour and a half early so I can do some shooting.
We recently had our orientation for Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas. While walking along Magnolia Way, I spotted this mama Wood Duck. I noticed a few fuzzy heads peeking out as well. Soon, a few heads turned into 12 as they went for a swim! Never a dull day at NYBG.
During the week of December 14, we had 12 Bronx elementary schools participate in our annual Children’s Holiday Tree Garden. Students created their own ornaments, and each tree featured a plaque identifying the school. After each group completed its tree decoration, the children were treated to hot chocolate, cookies, candy canes, and a walk through the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden.
At the end of the program, three schools were selected for the best decorations based on creativity of design and materials used for the ornaments. They were rewarded with a return visit to the Garden to view our annual Holiday Train Show.
Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.
