A Farm Grows Atop a Convention Center in NYC
Today, thousands of pounds of produce are grown in the city every year—in community gardens, urban farms, and indoor vertical farms.
By Bridget Shirvell
Cicl Eats
December 8, 2021
Excerpt:
New York City’s iconic event space at the Javits Center in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood shut down during the pandemic and hosted a hospital and mass vaccination site. Now, with apple and pear trees and more than 50 crops growing on its rooftop, it has reopened with in-person events that serve food produced from its own urban farm in hopes of connecting people to how their food is grown.
“We really expect it to be a place where we can grow a decent amount of food in an efficient manner for the convention center,” said Ben Flanner, co-founder and CEO of Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm, the company that designed and manages the farm.
“It’s a beautiful space, and I think it can be very inspiring from a what-is-possible standpoint for the hundreds of thousands of people that come through the convention center.”
The one-acre farm on the Javits Center’s 200,000 square-foot roof officially opened in September. The Brooklyn Grange team was able to plant and harvest several fall crops, including radishes and salad mixes, for New York Comic Con 2021, which the Javits Center hosted in early October. The Javits Center and Brooklyn Grange—which also operates its own rooftop farms in Brooklyn that produce 100,000 pounds of organic produce each year sold though markets, a CSA program, and wholesale—expect the farm to provide 40,000 fruits and vegetables to be used in Javits Center meals each year.
