Rockefeller Center Summer Gardens | Julia Watson LLC

Firm： Julia Watson LLC

Type： Hospitality + Sport › Restaurant Bar/Nightclub Cultural › Cultural Center Industrial › Winery Landscape + Planning › Public Park Urban Green Space

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2020

SIZE： 300,000 sqft - 500,000 sqft

BUDGET： $100K - 500K

In our first collaboration for the public domain, Watson Salembier designed a socially distanced summer gardens for the Ice Rink and North Plaza at Rockefeller Center, which is now open for the long weekend. This project is inspired by a wild American meadow, and planted with native grasses, perennials and trees indigenous to the north-east region. One hundred years ago on this site, two thousand native and rare exotic species were cultivated in the Elgin Botanic Garden. The summer rewilding of Rockefeller Center as an American Meadow brings the language of botany and biodiversity back to the city. The summer installation is an educational experience on the use of native plants as pest-resistant and drought-tolerant alternatives to ornamental species. Native flowering plants attract animal and insect species such as birds, bees and butterflies that are essential for pollination. In turn, these species assist Nature in cleaning the air we breathe and growing the agriculture we eat.

In 1801 a New York physician Dr. David Hosack made the United States first public Botanical Garden in a wooded area about three and a half miles north of the city. The Elgin Botanic Garden extended from 47th Street to 51st Street, and from Middle Street (now Fifth Street) westward to one hundred feet before reaching Sixth Avenue. The grounds included a conservatory and two hot houses surrounded by a stone wall seven feet high and two and a half feet thick. Inside the Botanic Garden, two thousand native species as well as rare and valuable exotics given by botanists from abroad were cultivated. In the 1920’s, the Elgin Botanic Garden was transformed into the site of Rockefeller Center.