NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN’S Holiday Train Show Offers Green Gift to New York
By Tom Citrano
New York is brimming with holiday traditions. From the Rockefeller Center Tree, to the Radio City Holiday Show, to the ice-skating in Bryant Park, every family has activities they like to enjoy at this time of year. And over the last 18 years more than a million of them have ventured out to the New York Botanical Garden to enjoy the Holiday Train Show.
Last year 160,000 people came to enjoy the Holiday Train Show. It’s the most-attended event at the Garden and features dozens of replicas of iconic skyscrapers, museums, mansions, brownstones, bridges, ballparks, and other famous structures. All have been meticulously brought to life by the imagination and diligence of Paul Busse and his team from Applied Imagination, in Alexandria, Kentucky.
Mr. Busse works from a totally natural palette. The models are constructed from myriad varieties of leaves, twigs, bark, berries, pods, pine cones and other plant materials. Each botanic interpretation of these historic landmarks takes many months to research, design and craft. More than a hundred of these models are on display through January 10, 2010, in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
Every year Busse surprises Holiday Train Show stalwarts with a couple new models. This year there’s a new model of the original Penn Station. Paul Busse believes it “could be his most exciting building yet.” The original building took up about 20 acres at West 34th and 8th Avenue when it was first built nearly 100 years ago. The Holiday Train Show version is a compact 20 square feet.
The intricate Garden version of Penn Station includes the “Grand Concourse,” accurately set two feet above the replica’s street level. It also features cutaway views of the train tracks beneath the station, complete with underground shuttling trains. The new Holiday Train Show version of the original Penn Station features columns made from honeysuckle; façade trim of sea grape leaves, peppercorns, viburnum, willow and oak bark; and railings of screw pod, burning bush, willow and acorn caps.
The roof is magnolia and pine cone scales and the skylights are burning bush and basket reed. The adorning eagles have white pine cone bodies, hemlock clove feet, magnolia bud feathers, and acorn cap wings. The clocks are birch bark and wheat seeds and the statues have pistachio bodies and cedrela wings. Mr. Busse and his team of six artists worked over 1100 hours to lovingly complete this new version of the old Penn Station.
Also new this year is a rendition of the original Brooks Brothers flagship store at 346 Madison Avenue (at 44th Street) in Manhattan. The model features beech and pine scale columns and juniper cone trim. The window mullions are red willow and fungus serves as the lower window topper. The roof trim is winged euonymus, lotus stems, pine stems, acorns, eucalyptus pod, reed and beech seeds. Founded in 1818 by Henry Sands Brooks as the first ready-to-wear fashion emporium in America. Brooks Brothers is the country’s oldest clothing retailer, and its flagship store is a New York icon.
Other innovations this year include sound. If you listen carefully you can hear World Series games being played inside the hallowed walls of the old Yankee Stadium. And digital technology allows crowds to hear baroque organ music coming through the faux-stained glass windows of the St. Patrick’s Cathedral model.
Although these precious replicas could stand alone as a museum-quality exhibit, the model trains are also crowd favorites. More than one dozen, large-scale, “garden-gauge” trains, from late 1800s American steam engines and streetcars to whimsical ladybug and circus cars, to modern freight and high-speed passenger trains, traverse over bridges, under waterfalls, around mountains, and through tunnels, winding their way between the landmark replicas.
For information about tickets and Holiday Train Show hours, visit
online at www.nybg.org.
TOP 10 TIPS to Maximize a Visit to the Holiday Train Show
The New York Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show is their most-attended exhibit of the year. In the last 18 years, over one million people have been charmed by this annual holiday present to the city. Seasoned veterans of the show, who have made it part of their family’s yearly holiday tradition, offer some advice for the novice visitor.
1. Avoid standing in line at the gate. Purchase tickets online at www.nybg.org and reserve early.
2. Christmas week is traditionally the busiest time at the Holiday Train Show. Plan your visit for the days before and after the December 26-January 3 crowds and also save money on ticket prices.
3. Evening viewings of the Holiday Train Show with twinkling lights in the “crystal palace” are magical. Plan your non-peak day visit for about 4pm and prepare to be enchanted.
4. Become a Garden Member to take advantage of discounted tickets and Members-Only Holiday Train Show viewing opportunities.
5. Avoid traffic and take the train to the trains. The Metro North Railroad stops across the street from the Botanical Garden gates. It’s about a twenty-minute ride from Grand Central Station, on the Harlem line.
6. The Garden has adopted a timed ticket system to better serve the flow of crowds. However, be advised that due to those same crowds, visitors may experience a delay to enter, based on visitor flow through the show.
7. Holiday Train Show tickets are sold in 15-minute blocks to facilitate entry into the Conservatory. But that doesn’t mean you have only 15 minutes to enjoy the show. Arrive about 30 minutes before your scheduled time to get on the grounds and in place for your designated entry time.
8. Strollers are encouraged on the garden grounds but are not permitted in the Conservatory. There’s a designated area to leave strollers. Baby carriers are permitted for transporting babies through the show.
9. The Holiday Train Show takes place indoors and is a rain or shine event. There are no refunds or rainchecks.
10. Don’t miss the interactive Gingerbread Adventures program in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, before or after viewing the Holiday Train Show.
For more information on the Holiday Train Show and other New York Botanical Garden offerings, visit the website at www.nybg.org.
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