A Forest in the City: Centuries of Sylvan Beauty (2011): Home

November 5, 2011 - January 16, 2012

Marking the dedication and ongoing restoration of The New York Botanical Garden’s Thain Family Forest, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library gathered together dozens of beautiful botanical prints, natural history books, historical photographs, and artifacts from its collection to tell the story of the 50-acre, old-growth Forest at the heart of the Botanical Garden. The exhibition offered visitors a rare opportunity to see several treasures held in the collections of the Garden’s renowned Library or on loan from the American Museum of Natural History.

A Forest in the City: Centuries of Sylvan Beauty, on display in the Mertz Library’s Rondina and Lo Faro Gallery, showed how the forces that affected woodlands throughout the northeastern United States played out along the rocky, tree-lined banks of the Bronx River, which bisects the Forest. A combination of evolution, exploration, resilience, conservation, and management has resulted in the preservation of one of New York City’s most precious natural areas, whose restoration was also celebrated with two Festival Weekends, November 5–6 and November 12–13, 2012, featuring a symposium and a variety of forest-related activities.