The GCA Supports Brooklyn Botanic Garden

November 24, 2020

Proposed Towers Threaten Sunlight to Garden’s Greenhouses

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 thirty-nine 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 twenty three conservatories, greenhouses, and nurseries—where plants for the entire fifty two acre garden are propagated and grown, including endangered orchids and hundreds-year-old bonsais. These facilities also serve as a hub for community and educational programs. 

The century-old garden is currently protected by zoning laws that cap building heights to prevent shadows on BBG’s conservatories and greenhouses. The GCA supports the effort to keep current zoning in place and protect the integrity and beauty of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

“Throughout my career I’ve fought to preserve and enhance green open spaces for the betterment of the people of New York City,” said Adrian Benepe, Brooklyn Botanic Garden president. “Brooklyn Botanic Garden is the jewel in the crown of this system, a 110-year-old institution whose mission has never been more urgent than now: to bring visitors—especially young people—into a deeper relationship with and understanding of the importance of plants. I consider it my duty to oppose any form of development that would heedlessly imperil this beloved space and its extraordinary and irreplaceable living collection.”

For more information click Brooklyn Botanic Garden Fight for Sunlight.

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