These New Yorkers Are Touching Grass

New York Times

21-05-2025

Visuals by Krista Schlueter
Text by Miya Lee This Sunday, at 10:30 a.m. sharp, a group of stylish, mostly 30-something New Yorkers gathered at the Hare Krishna Tree in the center of Tompkins Square Park.
Despite a few complaints of hangovers, they had made it there on time for a plant and history tour of the park led by Olivia Rose, who handed out tote bags and forest green zines she had made for the occasion. Ms. Rose, 33, is an artist and designer from the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan. She founded the plant design studio Original Rose in 2017.
Last August, she began hosting free guided walks around New York that explored both the city's history and its local plants.
Ms. Rose hopes her walks will foster a more intimate relationship between New Yorkers and the overlooked vegetation that lives alongside them. ' I like to think about it as, like, you're just learning more about your neighbors,' she said. The walks attract artists, writers, designers, models, musicians — 'the scenesters of the world,' as Daniel Ohrem, a friend of Ms. Rose's who showed up on Sunday for his second plant walk, put it.Aaron Maldonado and Sarah Gaudio, a married couple who run the streetwear brand Brigade USA, brought their dog to Sunday's walk and said they both identified as '100 percent plant-blind.'
'You can be here for decades and not know the intricacies of what you're seeing on the street day to day, ' Ms. Gaudio said. After roughly 35 people assembled, Ms. Rose called for everyone's attention. With her hand pressed to the Hare Krishna Tree's trunk, she explained that it was a rare example of a mature American elm in New York City, planted around 1879.
In 1966, the tree was where the spiritual leader Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his followers held a chanting ceremony that represented the birth of the Hare Krishna religion in the United States.
'I like to think that the trees hold in memory of all the things that have occurred,' Ms. Rose said. The crowd listened attentively as she went on to illuminate the many memories contained in the 10.5 acres of Tompkins Square Park.There was its use as a military parade ground, the various labor and antiwar protests, the concerts and drag festivals and the 1988 clash between protestors and police officers over issues including homelessness, gentrification and a 1 a.m. curfew.
'You can't ever bring this park down,' Ms. Rose said. 'The people come back. This is the people's park for a reason.' Next to the skate park on 10th Street, Ms. Rose pointed out a London plane, among the most common trees in New York City and one favored by the urban planner Robert Moses for its hardiness and adaptability. London planes are known for their flaky, camouflage-like bark and five-point leaves, which many believe inspired the leaf on the city's Parks Department logo.
After stopping by two monuments — the Slocum Memorial Fountain, which commemorates the victims of a 1904 ferry fire, and the Temperance Fountain, installed in 1888 to encourage people to drink water instead of alcohol — the walk was coming to a close. The park had begun filling up with sunbathers, children and people doing tai chi. Under the Hare Krishna Tree, a band was setting up for a performance.'She ate, absolutely ate,' Lydia Burns commented to her girlfriend about Ms. Rose. Ms. Burns, a model and native New Yorker, was particularly delighted by the hand-drawn map in Ms. Rose's zine that identified the location and the species of every tree in the park.
'I've been wanting to come for weeks and weeks and weeks,' she said. 'I'm excited that the spring is happening and she's really activating the girls to touch some grass — literally — and get outside.'
Produced by Tanner Curtis