Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at why truckloads of tulips are coming to Union Square this weekend.
Sunday is Tulip Day in Manhattan’s Union Square.
A temporary field of 200,000 flowers, trucked in from farms in New Jersey and Virginia, will bloom in the plaza from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; more than 10,000 people have registered in advance to create their own free bouquets. (Walk-ins will also be admitted.)
While there is no shortage of flowercentric events and festivals in New York each year, this is the first time Royal Anthos, a Dutch trade association for flower bulb companies, is bringing Tulip Day to the city alongside the European Union and the Netherlands Consulate General of New York. (Similar events are held in Amsterdam and San Francisco.)
Jeroen Bours, president of the Netherland Club of New York, which is also helping put on the event, said that when one of the club’s organizers mentioned the idea to him last year, he pointed out that if it were to take place in the city, the event would need to scale up. “If it’s not big, it’s not New York,” he said.
Tulip Day is one of many events that the Netherlands Consulate General is hosting to honor the 400 years since the first Dutch settlements were established in what is now New York.
The multiyear initiative, Future 400, includes events, projects and activities in collaboration with organizations in the city and beyond. The initiative is described on its website as the Netherlands’ way of “reflecting on the trials and triumphs that tell a more complete story of New York, while simultaneously looking toward the future.”
The lineup includes a summer youth program, theater and dance performances and art installations. There’s also a two-day conference called “Slavery in the New Netherland & the Dutch Atlantic World,” hosted by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, with the New-York Historical Society and the New Netherland Institute.
Another highlight is “New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam,” an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society. Part of the installation addresses the notorious “purchase” of Manhattan from Native Americans, with a letter by a Dutch West India Company administrator announcing the sale, displayed next to a statement refuting the sale, signed by chiefs of contemporary communities of the Lenape.
Ahmed Dadou, the Dutch consul general in New York, said the purpose of Sunday’s tulip event, and the initiative as a whole, was to connect all people in New York City with the Netherlands and vice versa, so that they could be in continuous conversation about their shared history.
The “400” symbol will linger throughout Tulip Day, with a flower structure in the form of the number displayed. At one point during the event, Mr. Dadou will also present the “Future 400” tulip, a new variety.
Mr. Bours said that he hoped Tulip Day would become a staple event in the city, like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. “And if this could wiggle itself in between there and become a New York tradition, that will be just terrific,” he said.
Weather
Prepare for a chance of rain, with a high near 50 degrees. Tonight, expect a chance of showers with a low in the high 30s.
METROPOLITAN diary
‘Here, kitty’
Dear Diary:
My first apartment in New York City was a ground-floor studio in a prewar building on West End Avenue.
I was studying there one afternoon when I saw an older woman peering through the security bars on my window.
“Here, kitty, kitty!” she said.
Noticing me seated at the table near the window, she became startled.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to say hi to your cat. I speak to him every day when I walk by.”
I told her he was taking a nap but that I could take a message.
“Tell him I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said.
— Nassim Behi
