Volume 22, Number 21 | The Newspaper of Lower Manhattan | October 2 - 8, 2009

Geranium giveaway

The Downtown Alliance will host an Adopt-a-Geranium Day from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 7 at Bowling Green Park (at Broadway and Whitehall Sts.) The event will give Downtowners a chance to dig up and keep a geranium.

Back in 1996, the Alliance began planting in Liberty Park and ran an event every fall in which people would dig up the plants prior to winter and bring them back to their offices. This event ended after the Sept. 11 attack, and was revived in Bowling Green Park last year, where 6,000 red geraniums were planted.

“Last year’s event was such a huge success that we ran out of geraniums, that’s how many people came down. Some people took up to eight at a time,” said Joseph Timpone, senior vice president for operations at the Alliance.

In all, more than 4,000 geraniums will be removed from Bowling Green Park in anticipation of the Downtown Alliance’s tulip-bulb planting on Saturday, Oct. 17., in which members of the community will come to plant tulip bulbs and pumpkins.

Glenwood Management, which manages several residential buildings within the district, sponsors the event by providing gloves, pots, and shovels.

“The office workers love it. We give them shovels and they pick out whatever they want and they dig it up,” said Timpone. “We had guys in 3 piece suits and women in dresses and boots, pulling out the geraniums. Its really interesting… and fun to watch.”

— Helaina N. Hovitz

 

 

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