« Windowboxes, 4/26 | Main | What's Blooming 4/27 »
April 26, 2005
Jefferson Market Garden
 |
Happy 30th birthday to the Jefferson Market Garden, a Greenwich Village treasure at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 10th Street. The garden celebrated its birthday this week with a party honoring Lynden B. Miller, NYC's public garden designer par excellence. Ms. Miller is the first recipient of the Jefferson Market Garden's Brooke Astor Award for Outstanding Contributions to Urban Gardens.
Jefferson Market, which adjoins the landmark Jefferson Market Library (originally a courthouse), was created on an empty lot that was the former site of the Women's House of Detention. (Have you seen David Duchovny's new film, House of D? Well, this was the place.) The garden has magnificent magnolias, which literally stop traffic on Sixth Avenue when they come into bloom in April, and lovely woodland plantings. Although the garden has always been a special place, there was a long period when it was open to the public only sporadically and the plantings looked more and more tired. All this has changed over the past few years, however, under the sure hand of horticulturist Susan Sipos and a group of dedicated volunteers. The garden now looks just spectacular: there is a large rose garden along the Sixth Avenue side, a small fish pond and a gracious center lawn that invites lazing. Even more importantly, the garden is now always open, with a big gate opening up onto Greenwich Avenue.
 |
The garden committee could not have chosen a better person to honor with its first award. Lynden B. Miller has dedicated her career to creating public gardens all over New York City, and in her work at New Yorkers for Parks, she also focuses on advocating for the 28,000 acres of parks in the city. You may well have seen her work in the 300-foot-long shrub and perennial borders in Bryant Park, or at the Conservatory Garden (where she began her design work), or in the gardens at Wagner Park, or perhaps in the many new plantings that have spruced up the Columbia University campus. She is an extraordinary force for good in the city, and we have all benefited from her efforts. To honor Ms. Miller, a special guest, Hans Van Waardenburg of B&K Flowerbulbs, announced that the Dutch had named a tulip for her. In years to come, the lovely, peony-flowered Lynden B. Miller tulip will be seen in city gardens everywhere, reminding us all of Ms. Miller's achievements and her particular message: that if you give people beautiful places, they will care for them and their lives will be better.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at April 26, 2005 03:44 PM