The Winter Garden

August 28, 2009

Penny remembers the year that this iconic structure rose from its bathtub of reclaimed silt and landfill.  One cold March afternoon, 1987, she escaped her office—and headed across the West Side Highway towards the East River in order to clear her head and get away from her coke-addled boss, Marvin Bacon. Replete with a highlighted perm and annoying Long Island accent he was as soothing as nails on a blackboard.  At that time, she worked for a small performing arts agency located on the seventieth floor of Two World Trade Center that managed the music bookings for Windows on the World, on the 102nd floor.  Her breath forming frosty clouds and nose hairs freezing, Penny turned back toward the Towers and in that perspective, encountered a very unusual site.  A construction crane was gingerly hoisting palm trees high into the air and delivering them through the steel girder skeleton and unglazed glass paneled roof into what would become the Winter Garden.  She remembers watching and wondering how many exotic plants were transported and trapped in this cold northern city, far away from their tropical homes.  How many palm trees and orchids were held captive and shivering in the Big Apple?

Taiwanese brides often traveled to the Winter Garden for their wedding photos. As if being photographed inside the Mecca of capitalism guaranteed nuptial tidings of good fortune.  It was not an unusual lunchtime site, to stumble across several of these young women scattered about, serenely posed on the rose-colored Italian marble floor.  Their smiles frozen and eyes locked in anticipation of the perfect photograph. Looking for all the hungry capitalists and secretaries rushing by, like sugary cake toppers; huge skirts arranged and spread out like ceremonial fans.  Porcelain figurines enveloped in cloud- rests of lace and tulle.