By Phyllis Odessey
People lost their homes, their lives, their electricity, their cars, their pets due to Hurricane Sandy. We lost plants.
On Wednesday, we hosted 14 volunteers from Goldman Sachs Community Teamworks to plant The Waterfront Garden, which sustained a certain amount of damage from Sandy.
Although we are surrounded by the water, Hurricane Sandy did not cause as much damage as Battery Park or Brooklyn Bridge Park. We were very lucky. We watched and waited to see what plants would make it or which would not.
I like to be scientific about these things, but some plants do have a life span and some of ours had come naturally to the end of their lives. Others were damaged by Sandy and died.
Goldman Sachs Community Teamworks volunteers have been coming to Randalls’ for 15 years. They have planted gardens and trees, mulched, removed debris and regraded slopes. We knew they would be up to the task at hand; 6,000 perennials for the waterfront garden. This sounds like a large number and for a residential situation it is. But we deal in big numbers on Randalls Island. Our land mass is half the size of Central Park. It takes a lot of plants and shrubs to make a garden.
The Waterfront Garden has approximately 150,000 perennials and 50,000 fall and spring blooming bulbs. This garden was created by Eunyoung Sebazco, Horticulture Manager and myself when we came to Randall’s Island seven years. Over the last seven years, Goldman Sachs volunteers have been coming to The Waterfront Garden to plant and mulch. We knew they could plant 6,000 perennials and by 2:30 pm, we were finished and walking back to Icahn Stadium to say goodbye.
We thank all our wonderful volunteers for participating and making The Waterfront Garden, what it has always been: a showcase, our Randall’s Island Park Alliance “greeting” to visitors walking or biking over the pedestrian bridge at 102 st. and most especially, a special place to sit and watch the world go by.
Gardens Randalls 