January 04, 2006
More Scott's Sponsorship
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Citygardenguide was horrified last fall to discover that Scott's Miracle-Gro, the country's largest lawn and garden care company was sponsoring the new Home Garden Center at the New York Botanical Garden. We had thought, naively, that NYBG was pursuing organic options as far as fertilizers and garden products were concerned. Now we learn that Bryant Park is also receiving help from Scott's. We aren't as upset about Bryant Park partnering with a company that promotes non-organic gardening methods, because we have come to look on BP as a giant planter, and the park is so dependent on corporate sponsorship that this one makes sense. But the suspicion occurs that Scott's Miracle-Gro (one company now) is pushing back against a growing tide of organic gardens and gardeners, and is looking at more blue chip garden sponsorships to counter its image as the chief purveyor of chemical, anti-environmental gardening solutions. Is the Central Park Conservatory next?
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2005
Christmas Decorations
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On the whole Citygardenguide feels that Christmas is a time when a little excess in the decorating line is permissible, even desirable. A tasteful Christmas tree is generally a boring Christmas tree. And we take as much pleasure as anybody in the fantastical window displays on Fifth Avenue, or the Christmas light extravaganzas on the lawns of Queens or Staten Island. But somehow it's hard to do modern architecture and Christmas. Midtown's sterile high rises look uncomfortable dressed up for the holidays. The exception to this rule is the display in front of the Seagram Building; two separate islands of evergreens undecorated save for a rather sparse string of clear lights. Although this would seem austere in any other context, beneath the graceful black grid of the iconic skyscraper it looks just right. We think even Mies would have liked it.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 05:50 AM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2005
Bryant Park: Park or Event Space?
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As skaters twirl around "The Pond," Bryant Park's temporary skating rink, which is surrounded by a holiday market featuring an unimaginable number of tchotchkes and restaurants, garden lovers have to wonder, has Bryant Park finally crossed the line between park and event space? The Community Board certainly seems to think so (see The New York Times December 5, 2005). Local residents are complaining about the increasing number of corporate events in the park. As garden lovers, we at Citygardenguide are saddened by the fact that having a handsome, historically significant, highly acclaimed garden/park right in the middle of the busiest part of Manhattan is not in itself enough to guarantee the funds needed to maintain it.
Bryant Park is the only public park in the city that receives no public money. The Bryant Park Restoration Corporation must generate the considerable sum needed for its upkeep. BPRC measures its success by how many people use the park; there are many--20,000 a day in warm months. But it is also a victim of this success. The more users, the more upkeep, the more costly the whole undertaking becomes. Hence the need for corporate sponsorship for the big public events like the summer movie series, and the practice of renting out the park for private events like Fashion Week.
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Let's face it, Bryant Park has become a "venue," an attractive open space that is programmed with a variety of activities chosen to appeal to a wide public. There are countless events and programs throughout the year: right now you can take skating lessons, skate with the Rangers on Wednesdays, and, of course, shop. To sustain itself, Bryant Park needs people, and the "Pond" is a brilliant way to attract visitors in what would otherwise be a dead season for an outdoor " venue." It's the only free skating rink in Manhattan, and there's nothing like watching skaters to make you feel that winter's not so bad after all. The corporation does a pretty good job finding community-enriching activities and getting corporate sponsorship. It's a balancing act--and if they sometimes err on the side of the commercial (the Fetes de Noel Holiday Market in our view is erring quite considerably) the Park has become an important city gathering spot.
As a community, with rare exceptions, we don't adequately sustain passive recreational spaces. Even when we do support them, it is with private funds. Just think of the number of conservancies set up to preserve and protect our larger parks. Either we are willing to pay for a commercial-free. pristine Bryant Park, or we put up with " programming" and corporate logos. Bryant Park is a great public amenity--but it is no longer a garden oasis.
LinksBryant Park Restoration Corporation
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2005
28th Street Flower District
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Looking for amaryllis or paperwhites for the holidays? Tired of the same-old selection of cut flowers at the grocery store? Or you want to send a gift of potted orchids but they're too expensive at your neighborhood florist? There's one perfect place to go in Manhattan--28th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Tropical plants and trees, cut flowers of every imaginable variety, pots of paperwhites and tulips and hyacinths, rows of orchids (not just the classic phalanopsis, but unusual dendrobium, oncidium, etc.) all line the street and pack the stores. If you are looking for cut flowers, get an early start, meaning 5am, and do your shopping before noon, when most of the flower traders will close up; other stores remain open until late afternoon. Also on the block is Jamali (www.jamali.com), which prides itself in carrying everything anyone working with plants or flowers could possibly need or want--ribbons, planters, containers of every size and shape, fertilizer, bulbs, etc.
As recently as twenty years ago, the Flower District extended from 24th Street to 30th Street, from Broadway to Seventh Avenue, but in 1995 the local zoning was changed to residential, which upped everyone's rent and encouraged a huge surge in new apartment towers. Now the district is reduced to just one block--28th Street, between Sixth and Seventh--and even that's future is threatened. It seems that every season more stores are closing down and moving out to the suburbs. Although there has been talk for years about moving the market en masse to another location, the businesses, used to being independent, don't seem interested in banding together to save the market. The trade organization continues to try to find new locations where the business could thrive, and it is not clear to anyone how long the street will survive. In the meantime, treat yourself to a visit.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2005
Fresh Food at Rock Center
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Although it seems counter-intuitive, there is no reason not to "eat local" if you live in New York City, especially if you call Manhattan home. Consider, there are 47 greenmarkets in the city, 21 of them in Manhattan. The Council on the Environment of New York City's Greenmarket Program, which has been operating since 1976, ensures that all the food sold in the markets is indeed grown regionally by actual farmers. This means that this week there is almost nowhere in Manhattan, be it ever so urban, where you can't buy fresh-picked corn or delicious, tree-ripened peaches.
The most extreme example of this admirable urban/rural dialectic has got to be at Rockefeller Center. Three days a week in July and August, farmers set up in the Plaza behind the skating rink. This week the market features the most stunning selection of berries: blueberries, raspberries and lots and lots of gooseberries (we were reaching for our cookbooks to see what we could make with them). There are also piles of the sweetest corn and lots of peaches and plums. In the people-watching department, it's amusing to observe tourists watching men in suits and clutching briefcases, earnestly choosing tonight's vegetable or dessert.
The greenmarket at Rockefeller Center is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8-6.
For a complete listing and map of New York Greenmarkets go to the Council on the Environment of New York
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2005
What's up with the Public Library?
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Usually the annual beds in front of the Public Library are filled with pink impatiens or begonias by now. This year, as you can see, the oakleaf Hydrangeas are blooming nicely (as they are throughout the city) but the long beds on either side of the Library steps are bare naked save for a few weeds. Bryant Park is positively bursting with bloom, the planters on the front steps of the Library are stuffed, but all the pots in the world don't make up for what looks like lack of care in front of one of the city's greatest landmarks.
Citygardenguide is a relentless proseltyzer for NYC gardens, which we think are underappreciated and exceptionally fine-but this is an embarrasement.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2005
Greenmarket
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Where would we be without the Greenmarket? Right now, it seems like a garden unto itself--along with the usual selection of wonderful fresh vegetables, fruits, cheese, meats, fish, honey, maple syrup and bread, the Greenmarket celebrates spring with a great selection of plants as well. And we're not just talking about fluffy hanging baskets, but herb plants, vegetable starts, well-grown annuals and perennials--the Greenmarket has them all. The biggest selection can be found at the Union Square market, which is held on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2005
The Daffodil Project
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All over the city--along highways and busy streets, in parks and community gardens--yellow daffodils are beginning to bloom. Thanks to the Daffodil Project, which was begun in 2001 to commemorate September 11, over 2,500,000 bulbs have been planted by volunteers and the Parks Department, and April is when they put on their show. Along with their cheerful color, which just shouts spring, the great thing about daffodils is that they are very reliable and they naturalize and multiply each year. Clumps of bulbs are getting bigger, and this year there seem to be yellow flowers everywhere, which is just what the Parks Department and New Yorkers for Parks hoped would happen when they accepted the first donation from a generous Dutch bulb grower, Hans Van Waardenburg of B&K Flowerbulbs.
Link: NYC Parks and New Yorkers for Parks
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)
March 08, 2005
Groundswell
Groundswell, an exhibition featuring 23 contemporary landscape projects, opened this past weekend at the Museum of Modern Art. Whether you like the projects or not, they provide a fascinating scan of what is happening in the world of landscape architecture and design and a welcome affirmation of the importance of the discipline.
The projects range from a richly textured linear plaza proposed for a new University in Shanghai (Shanghai Carpet) and a playful urban plaza in Rotterdam (Schouwburgplein) to a visionary plan to develop the Fresh Kills landfill site in Staten Island (Fresh Kills Lifescape). Asia, Europe and the US are well represented, but there is nothing from the Southern hemisphere.
A major theme of the show is the recycling of abused, discarded or superannuated landscapes. The most moving and optimistic projects are ones that reclaim public spaces from the ravages of war or industry.
Two particularly inspirational sites are the Gardens of Forgiveness in Central Beirut and the Duisburg Nord Landscape Park in Druisberg Germany. The Gardens of Forgiveness (Hadiqat As-Samah), designed by Kathryn Gustavson and Neil Porter, are being created in a 16-block area that was ravaged in Lebanon's 16-year civil war. The cleanup of the area uncovered ruins from Roman to medieval times, and these have been incorporated into the master plan. The gardens were conceived as a place of reconciliation and a sign of the country's rebirth. Each garden is laden with reference and symbolism. An archeological garden is being planted with herbs grown in Roman times. Elsewhere, the plant pallet is drawn from all of the regions that make up modern Lebanon. This project seems particularly relevant in view of the tumultuous but hopeful events occurring there now.
Duisburg Nord Landscape Park in Germany took 12 years to complete. Peter Latz and Partners transformed the old Thyssen Steelworks into a hugely successful landscape park incorporating the industrial buildings to create a new park where the past is freely acknowledged and in come cases recycled. Nature is sometimes used to beautify, sometimes used to remediate and sometimes just allowed to exist. This is a place where rock climbers use abandoned ore bunkers to practice, where a grid of cherry trees creates a serene plaza in the shadow of the former blast furnace and where scuba divers practice in the old water-cooling pool.
These are new kinds of landscapes. Each in its own way grapples with the harsh reality of the environmental, ecological, and aesthetic havoc we have wreaked in our communities. Instead of trying to recreate an idealized form of nature, the designers here are using metaphor and are acknowledging and often incorporating the many levels of the past into their projects. Plants are frequently used allegorically in formal settings or else as part of natural systems used to remediate severely polluted land.
The show is an acknowledgement that there are no clean starts anymore, and that the past for better or worse cannot or maybe should not be eradicated. These projects grapple with the results of the worst impulses of humanity----it is encouraging that many of the solutions here are so beautiful.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at MoMA
When the Museum of Modern Art reopened in November after a four-year expansion and renovation, museum visitors encountered an entirely new museum, airy and ethereal, wrapped around the reassuringly familiar rectangular grid of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Paradoxically, the garden looks both the same--and better.
But make no mistake, this is the new sculpture garden. It was completely demolished during the renovation and the site was the staging area for the construction, still littered with pallets of stone, girders and construction debris as late as September. If it looks somehow fresher than before, that’s because it is: everything is new. The pavers, white Vermont marble, veined with grey, are a slightly brighter color than the originals, the better to echo the glowing fritted glass which encases the
building. The plant material is also new, and the dimensions of the trees (weeping beech, white birch and London plane trees) exactly match the original scale of the plantings.
The few changes are for the better. The north wall, originally dull dun colored brick, is now made from polished concrete panels whose color matches the brushed aluminum panels of the museum’s deep porticos. The architect Yoshio Tanaguchi’s Japanese aesthetic is evident in the way that the city has been brought into the design as “borrowed landscape”. The row of plane trees on the exterior of the north wall has been replaced with much smaller trees, and this allows the lively 54rth streetscape to be part of the north vista. There is a cutout on the south eastern end of the building which affords a nicely framed view of the gothic windows of St. Thomas Church. These urban elements add complexity, but not confusion to the garden.
The most notable change is the garden’s integration into the museum. The entire Western façade of the new building is glass, this transparency makes the garden more accessible to visitors as they circulate though the building. The geometric nature of Philip Johnson’s 1953 design is wonderfully clear when seen from above. The upper gallery floors are excellent vantage points to understand the Miesian pattern of the interlocking rectangles,- and the integral part the softening effect of the plants plays in the design. Two deep porticos, one on the east and one on the west side of the garden lengthen the space by a total of about 40 feet, and serve as transition points between the interior and exterior spaces.
When Tanaguchi was asked 6 months before its completion what he thought of his building, he replied that he would only be able to judge its success when the garden was installed, because the building was created around it. When he toured the site on the eve of the museum’s November reopening, he admitted that he was happy. The centering presence of the garden completes the complex, and the garden takes its rightful place, as one of the seminal works in the museum’s collection.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at 07:22 PM | Comments (0)