Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld (1794-1872)
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Botanical gardens are places of great natural beauty meant to give people pleasure and calm their spirits. Still, these living visions of paradise are earthly creations that exist with us and the rest of the world's creatures and creations. Sometimes the mix of people, the outside world, and paradise can be explosive.
Good Neighbors Again?
Fordham University and the New York Botanical Garden are neighbors. They have faced one another across a street in the Bronx for over a hundred years. For nearly a decade years though, these long-time neighbors have been squabbling over a radio-transmitting tower
Fordham houses public radio station WFUV-FM on its campus. The dispute with the Garden began in 1994 when the station began building a new transmission tower on the Western edge of its campus about 150 feet from the Garden. The tower rose to 260 feet of its proposed 480-foot height before the Garden convinced the New York City Buildings Department and the FCC to order construction stopped
 On its 2001 web page the Garden said that the "derrick-like tower looms over much of the Garden, diminishing its beauty and undermining the experience of its visitors." It believes that its Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is especially compromised. The Haupt Conservatory is a Victorian-era glass house that houses the Garden's tropical and desert plant collections. Used as a symbol of the Garden, the Haupt Conservatory was designated as a Landmark Building in 1973. The Garden considers its objections to the tower as a significant test case for determining whether landmark buildings and landscapes can be protected from nearby structures considered intrusive.
 Fordham University has another view. WFUV-FM says it needs a new tower and the FCC agrees. The FCC approved construction of a new tower in 1983, and since then Fordham has looked at 30 possibilities. Any new site must be tall enough to dissipate excessive RF radiation. The radio signal sent out can't interfere with other radio stations nor can it garble tower-aircraft talk along the flight path to LaGuardia Airport. The tower has to be in a secure location, and the University is committed to putting it in a place where it "would have the least impact on residential neighborhoods." The University believes that the only place that fits the bill is the place where the unfinished tower now stands.
Both the Garden and the radio station have been waging legal battles and public relation campaigns to win supporters. Both have web sites that state their views and discount the agreements of their neighbor; both are gathering names on online petitions; both are relying on celebrities to state their respective cases. WFUV even has a slogan: "No Tower. No Tunes."
Resolution of the dispute would be easy if this was an old-fashioned Western with good guy squared off against bad guy. But it's harder to take sides between a public radio station known for its programs that according to a Newday article "help foster ethnic identity and cultural pride in a remarkable mix of communities" in the Bronx and a century-old, world-renowned botanical garden.
The Garden and the University have talking and looking for an alternative site that would satisfy them both. Finally, in May 2004, ten years after the stub of a tower was built, a tentative accord was reached when Montefiore Medical Center in the Brox agreed to allow Fordham University to build a 142-foot tall transmission tower atop a 28-story apartment building that the hospital owned. Under terms of the agreement, the half-built tower on the campus of Fordham would be come down. The New York Botanical Garden, the Fordham University, and Montefiore Medical Center would share the cost of demolition and relocation. If the plan is approved by the FCC and the city, Montefiore will get an annual rent of $100,000, the radio station will get a state-of -the-art tower that will reach more listeners, and the Garden will get back its view.
Do As I Say
Three years ago a tipster reported The New York Botanical Garden to the State Attorney General's Office for dumping pollutants into the Bronx River. An investigation by the Attorney General's Office and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation claimed that the Garden was violating state and federal environmental laws by illegally discharging as much as 5,000 gallons a day of pollutants, including pesticides, fertilizers, and oil from its greenhouses into storm drains that flow directly into the Bronx River. A mile of the river runs through the Garden.
While the Garden denied the amount of dumping and the nature of the water discharged into the river, it did agree to an out-of-court settlement in January 2002. The terms of settlement required the Garden to stop the discharges and to collect its wastewater in storage tanks for proper disposal. The Garden also agreed to spend $365,000 on projects meant to benefit the river and the people who use it. One of the projects includes building a canoe launch and canoe portage trail on the Garden grounds.
In 2001, the Bronx Zoo also was cited for dumping animal waste into the river. They settled by agreeing to reduce pollution discharges into the river and to develop a new park along the river bank.
The Saga of the Homeless Bats
They are called "flying foxes." With their reddish-brown markings and long snouts, this species of Australian fruit bat resembles a fox. In colonies of thousands they like to roost in eucalyptus forests. But as gum trees are cut for pasture and homes, the bats have headed to the parks and orchards around cities and towns to survive. There, the bats' fondness for fruit, their screeching voices, guano, and gregarious style of living have made them pests for many.
Twenty years ago small numbers of grey-headed flying foxes settled in the Melbourne Botanical Garden in a place called 'Fern Gully.' Fern Gully was started in the 1870s as a preserve for Australian rainforest trees and plants. Today, according to the Garden, "Fern Gully presents an interesting and valuable collection of rare and threatened plant species."
 The colony of flying foxes began to increase dramatically in the late 90s. By February 2001, there were 20,000 bats roosting in the tall trees in Fern Gully. "This is an unprecedented crisis," said Garden director Dr. Philip Moors. He said that because of the damage being done to rare and endangered trees and plants in Fern Gully and the failure of alternative ways used to control the population of flying foxes, he was authorizing culling of the bats. "I recognise this is going to upset some people. But there will also be many, many others who will say, 'It's about time. Get on with it.' The media and public will know threats have been made against the heritage and rare trees in the Gardens, including a threat to kill one tree for every bat culled. I think you will understand then why I do not intend to give a running commentary on the culling operation."
The reaction of animal activists was immediate. Flying Foxes were in danger of extinction themselves, they claimed. Further, th ey said that if the bats in the Garden were killed, others would return to fill their places leading to endless rounds of killing. The Humane Society for Animal Welfare (HSAW) held a protest in the gardens and began a protest vigil setting up tents and camping on the Garden grounds. Television and newspapers covered a noisy demonstration at 2 a.m. outside the home of Dr. Moor and later outside his office. Barbed wire was installed on the fences around the Garden and guard dogs were brought in. Protesters placed a dead bat on the steps of parliament building. HSWA members contacted the Garden board members and financial supporters to urge them to withdraw their support of the Garden. Police were called in to prevent violence. The Humane Society International tried unsuccessfully to get a court-ordered injunction to stop the shooting of flying foxes in the Garden.
As cooler weather finally arrived, about half of the colony left the Garden and the culling stopped. According to the Garden's website, an attractive alternative roosting site outside the garden has been located. An "x" on a map shown on the Garden's website puts the new roosting site in the Ivanhoe Public Golf Course and adjacent to the grounds of two private golf clubs.
By July of 2002 the new site was ready. Better roosting spots were made. Leaf litter from the Botanical Garden was brought collected to make the new residents feel at home, and a feast of tasty weed seedlings and ferns was planted. To jump start the intended migration, seventy bats were moved to the Ivanhoe site and decoy bats were hung from the trees. The flying foxes, gregarious creatures that they are, would realize how much better Ivanhoe was than their old digs in the Botanical Garden and fly off to their new roosting place.
The bats stayed put. By March 2003 there were a record number of 28,300 animals roosting in the Garden. The Garden had had enough of this voluntary relocation program and decided to encourage the bats to move out by banging on metal trash cans and clanging on cymbals from dusk to dawn.
In April 2003, the bats moved. All of them. But none of them moved to their carefully planned and fully prepared new community at Ivanhoe. Instead the colony divided. Some left the state and about 500 flew to Geelong Botanic Garden, about forty miles away. But thousands moved into home gardens and backyards of quieter neighborhoods and into the Melbourne city parks, including Fitzroy Gardens, the City's premier public park.
City officials were not welcoming. For starters they said that the State's Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) and the Melbourne Botanical Garden cooked up the relocation plan "without the City of Melbourne involvement." Now the City was stuck with 6000 flying foxes in Fitzroy Gardens. The animals they claimed were damaging the heritage elms and keeping visitors away because of "their noise, unpleasant smell and droppings." Something had be done and soon the City demanded because "in August many animals are expected to migrate back from eastern Australia and roosting numbers are expected to increase. Also breeding is expected to commence at this time, and disturbance activities will have to cease due to animal welfare concerns."
The Botanical Garden and State's Department of Sustainability stepped in and started a new "dispersal effort" at Fitzroy Gardens bringing with them their arsenal of recorded noises, clanging cans and cymbals, starting pistols and even the sounds of fireworks. At dusk and dawn everyday for a month between June and July 2003, it was people versus bats. At its August 2003 meeting, the Melbourne City Council announced with some relief that the din had worked. The flying foxes had left Fitzroy Gardens.
As reported in a July 31, 2003 article in The Age "The leader of the bat-moving program, the department's flora and fauna director, Robert Begg, would not speak to The Age, but some progress seems to have been made, despite only a handful moving to Ivanhoe, the spot designed for them." Of the original 28,000 animals in the Botanical Garden, 17,000 have left the state, nearly 5000 have taken roost at other botanic gardens, about 3000 have moved into more upscale quarters in the river-front gardens of multi-million dollar Melbourne mansions, and rest are unaccounted for or still roosting in other city parks.
Married, Yes. Buried, No
A couple can be married in the Rose Garden in the Garden where I walk for $450. For a $1300, they can use the Japanese Garden for their ceremony. For a fee, the Garden welcomes wedding, parties, receptions, and most other special events. Not listed on the rate card I picked up are fees for having the ashes of a loved one scattered or for having your own ashes put in your favorite place. In his will Garden founder Henry Shaw said he was the only person who could ever be buried in the Garden. I had never even thought about such a possibilities until I read about the fuss that went at Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens in 2000.
 Anglican priest Peter Macleod-Miller said he had often officiated at memorial services where ashes were scattered in the Garden. The ceremonies were held without incident and relatives had never been charged a fee. Then last November, Father Macleod-Miller found out that a parishioner had been asked to pay a fee of $500 to scatter the ashes of a loved one in the Garden. Father Peter was outraged calling the charges a rip-off and a scam.
Family and friends agreed to pay the fee and the ceremony went on a scheduled. Fr. Peter grumbled that an employee of the Garden attended the memorial to collect the money as soons as the service was over. He also complained that his solemn words had been drowned out by nearby lawn mowers.
The director of the Garden, Dr. Philip Moors, said that the charge was meant to discourage families from considering the Garden as the final resting place of their loved ones. He acknowledged that many people have great affection for the Gardens, but that the Garden was a place of relaxation and celebration for the living, not a memorial garden for the dead. Further he said, "How would you feel in your back garden if there were a total stranger's ashes being sprinkled in an area that you're working on? ... It's entirely understandable that they [the garden staff] should have reservations about human remains under the rosebush, as it were. We believe our policy is based on common sense and the provision of proper care for the gardens."
Followup: The Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens has banned scattering of ashes in the Gardens and has refunded the $500 fee to the family. Father Macleod-Miller left Melbourne to become rector of a parish in England.
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