The GCA Supports Brooklyn Botanic Garden

May 09, 2019

“Fight for Sunlight”

The Garden Club of America has joined the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s (BBG) “fight for sunlight,” opposing proposed changes to zoning rules that would allow construction, including two 39-story towers, immediately adjacent to the BBG that would impact the amount of sunlight the garden receives.

The BBG has said that the massive structures could block as much as four and a half hours of sunlight daily, threatening the garden’s conservatories, greenhouses, and nurseries—where plants for the entire garden are propagated and grown.

The century-old garden is currently protected by zoning laws that cap building heights to prevent shadows on BBG’s conservatories and greenhouses. “The Garden is a world-renowned treasure and national asset whose plant collections have been serving the community … for over 100 years,” the GCA’s letter from President Dede Petri and Horticulture Committee Chairman Katherine Shepperly said.  “… [I]t would be tragic indeed for the city to permit high-rise development to damage a national, indeed global, treasure.”

 

Click HERE to take action and stand with BBG by signing its petition.

 

Lead photo: Desert Pavilion in the Conservatory. Photo by Antonio Cerna. Courtesy of Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Second photo: Aquatic House in the Conservatory at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Photo by Elizabeth Peters. Courtesy of Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

 

See All News