Gardens on a roof?

We visited the city last night and got back too late for an old man like me to blog so I’ll share a little before I go to this morning’s session. Terry and I started the day with a visit to a middle school in the Bronx, Fieldston School, with two roof top gardens and the others visited a sustainable farm, Stone Barns.

I have read about, but never seen a roof top garden until this visit. I learned a great deal about them as well as the potential for them to have a significant impact on New York’s sewage runoff problem if it were to become a common practice. At Fieldston, one of the roofs is not accessible to students for safety reasons and is the site for a study through Columbia University to learn about the properties of these gardens and to monitor data over time. The second garden is also the site for a Columbia study focused on multiple ground covers and is available to students and teachers for learning. A research assistant and teachers shared with us their work and how they use the roof in their sustainability curriculum.

What was very interesting for me was not only the information about the purpose for these roofs and the potential that they have to influence the atmosphere of New York City, but also the controversy that surrounds them. Though there is still little data over time, there is initial data that demonstrates the capacity of these roofs to influence runoff and building temperature that should promote their use. Here, however, the mayor does not support them as a viable alternative. He and staff instead are promoting white roof cover. This, I believe, is symptomatic of what the sustainability movement must confront. Many are skeptical seeing it as the new “hippie” thing to do. Time will tell if the “science” of this initiative to focus on our earth can overcome the skepticism that many have about the need and the possible solutions. At some time it will become a topic of discussion in our community.

The visit to the city was my first and was wonderful. There is so much to see and we had so little time to see it in. The kids were great; wanting to make sure that I saw Times Square and leading me to all the right subways. We only had one minor glitch when we took an express that went beyond our destination. Michael got us right back on track. We had a great dinner at of all places, a Chinese restaurant. It looked a little different than China, but the food was great and the company couldn’t have been better.