See all your favorite New York-area landmarks recreated in miniature using only plant materials under the dazzling domes of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory while indulging in a signature cocktail designed just for us!
Bar Car Nights are a great date night, a wonderful way to celebrate the holidays with your friends, or a chance to see one of New York City’s most enchanting holiday experiences in a sophisticated, child-free setting. Cap the night off with dinner from one of our exclusive partner restaurants or nosh your way around our new Holiday Dining Pavilion: Streets of New York, Stephen STARR Events’ dining experience that celebrates everything delicious about historic NYC street food.
A very limited number of tickets are still available for tonight and tomorrow, so snap them up as quickly as you can and join us for this enchanting evening!
Start your tour at any house, and then hop on a trolley and head to the next destination! Each location will offer special activities, delicious refreshments, and a glimpse at what life was like during the holidays decades, or even centuries ago.
The Holiday Train Show‘s Roosevelt Island Lighthouse
A traditional tree-lighting ceremony is so central to the winter experience in New York City that it’s hard to imagine ringing in the holidays without one. And while our own lighting has already taken place this year, our good friends with the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) are just as keen to celebrate the season of twinkling lights, eye-catching ornaments, and memorable company. This Friday, they’re hosting one of the best kept secrets in the boroughs with their own tree-lighting ceremony—one that boasts a thriving small town spirit you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in the city.
If you’ve never paid a visit to this sliver of island east of Manhattan, maybe you’ll recognize its contribution to our Holiday Train Show. The Roosevelt Island Lighthouse was originally built as the Blackwell Island Light in 1872, and since then it’s not only been added to the National Register of Historic Places, but immortalized in natural materials as a seasonal miniature in our Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
Everything’s that much better under a twinkling glow, and the Holiday Train Show is no exception. On Friday and Saturday nights this week, December 6 and 7, we’re turning down the lights and turning up the festivities with the first of this season’s Bar Car Nights. And if you’ve never been to one, just think of it as a chance to experience our dozens of miniature landmarks and model trains in an entirely new atmosphere—one highlighted by the cocktails and mellow tunes that make for a perfect evening in New York.
We’ll have a professional photographer on hand to capture some memories (because who wants to carry a point-and-shoot when clutch real estate comes so dear?), and new this year, you’re welcome to head outside to the Conservatory Courtyard for a live ice carving demonstration from Okamoto Studios. Their expert artists join us to turn enormous blocks of ice into all manner of holiday art, from trains to Garden landmarks and more.
Across the way in the Holiday Dining Pavilion, Stephen STARR Events will be cooking up a storm from a New York-themed menu celebrating everything delicious about historic NYC street food. Though if you’re looking to make the night last even longer, hold onto your Bar Car Night ticket stub: we’ve got partnerships with a number of gourmet restaurants offering discounts and bonuses for those who join us, all of which you can find listed here.
The famous Little Red Lighthouse–in miniature form–is one of the many New York-area landmarks populating the Holiday Train Show. Can you find it in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory?
While we won’t be open on Thanksgiving Day, a fact the Garden’s turkeys are all too fond of, there’s still the entire holiday weekend to go! We’ll be taking advantage of it with the ongoing Holiday Train Show, several tours of specific collections and seasonally fascinating autumn plants, and some fun for the kids in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden.
It’s also a perfect opportunity to get a head start on working off those Thanksgiving and Hanukkah carbs before any incoming December feasts you have planned. Of course, there’s no better place to do this than our Forest trails. While most of the leaves have already fallen, there’s a certain elegance to the netting of branches that overlays the trails in our 50-acre old growth woodland, and I doubt you’ll find many places in this bustling city quite so insulated from the urban world outside.
Check out our relaxed schedule below for detailed information on the tours we’ll be having throughout the weekend, and if you’re leaving town for the holidays, here’s to safe and stress-free travels!
The lights are glittering, the trains are running, there’s a nip in the air, and we couldn’t be more thrilled about it! After exploring the wonders of the Holiday Train Show, be sure to visit the rest of the Conservatory’s sultry galleries where you’ll find beautiful and fascinating plants aplenty. Our new, limited-run Holiday Dining Pavilion: “Streets of New York” has treats for everyone in your family, and plenty of comfy seating.
Outside, the Thain Family Forest is the epitome of fall, with plenty of leaves to crunch, even if they have fallen to the ground in many places. The Native Plant Garden and Azalea Garden are also worth a visit this time of year!
