Newsletter – Spring, 2023

Vol.6, No.2 Firth H. Fabend, Editor Esme E. Berg, Production Editor Letter from NAHC President and Executive Director  Dear NAHC Patrons, Donors, and Friends, Welcome to the Spring, 2023, NAHC Newsletter! This publication is our 15th Newsletter dating back to the inaugural Volume 1 published in 2017. All prior Newsletters …

Tulips on Park Avenue

Spring in New York unofficially begins when the Park Avenue tulips bloom. The underground rail lines beneath the avenue heat the ground and give the bulbs and New Yorkers a head start on the season. In mid-May, when the leaves yellow, the Fund invites the public to its annual BYOS (Bring Your Own Shovel) Big Dig to gently gather the bulbs. The following fall, those 66,000 bulbs find their way into tree pits, flower boxes and front and backyard gardens.

In 2009, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Henry Hudson into today’s New York Harbor, the Orange Blushing Apeldoorns, Darwin Hybrids, filled the Park Avenue malls.

For its part, the New York City Parks Department plants 90,000 tulips throughout the city each year. At the Conservatory Garden, 105th Street and Fifth Avenue, with half the garden
under renovation, “only” 10,000 will grace the garden this spring.

Dutch-American Friendship Day

Two hundred years later, in 1982, President Ronald Reagan officially proclaimed 19 April Dutch-American Friendship Day. Two centuries of diplomatic relations between the two countries constituted “the United States’ longest unbroken, peaceful relationship with any foreign country.” Every year the American Embassy in The Hague, the Dutch Embassy in Washington, …