The Muse

Photography John Peden, Courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden

It¹s been almost 50 years since the United States government imposed the nation's longest-running trade embargo on Cuba.

I'll leave musings on the effectiveness of Kennedy/Castro-era sanctions on a tropical paradise with screwed-up politics to superior minds (Jon Stewart? Steve Colbert?). What I really want to know is: How long 'til we all get to visit?

Ever since Gilberto Garcia was given the desk next to mine in Mrs. Trudell's fourth-grade class (remember when we all had to sit in alpha order?), the history and culture of this powerful little island has intrigued me. Maybe my inner child just wants to explore places she¹s been forbidden to venture her whole life, but a part of me feels a little sad to think that Gilberto‹who dreamed of growing up to be a doctor and returning to Cuba to help the sick‹still hasn¹t had an opportunity to visit his birthplace once in all these years.

Without special permission, Americans still can't visit Hemingway's beloved Finca Vigia; we can't marvel at Havana's Spanish Colonial architecture or mid-century American cars; and we can't begin to imagine what marvels await us in the island's biologically diverse countryside.

Oncidiums number among the 300 species of orchids native to Cuba. Photograph by John Peden.

But, this winter, a little bit of Cuba has come to us, via the eighth annual Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx.

Cuban-reared architect Jorge Sánchez, of the Palm Beach-­based design firm Sanchez & Maddux, has collaborated with Thomas Noel of Event Design Incorporated to re-create the landscape and architecture of his childhood home under the 90-foot dome of the garden's Enid Haupt Conservatory.



Outside the Enid Haupt Conservatory. Photography by Joseph DeSciose.


Inside the Enid Haupt Conservatory. (Really: Where would you rather be right now?) Photograph by Robert Benson.

From February 27th through April 11th, a little piece of Cuba's historic culture, vernacular architecture, and biologically diverse landscape will be accessible to all of us, just a 20-minute ride from Grand Central.

I'm booking a ticket today: www.nybg.org/visit/tickets.php.  (Gilberto, if you're out there, maybe you should, too.)

Bring a little piece of the tropics home from the Bronx: Orchids are for sale in the New York Botanical Garden's gift shop.

-Marjorie E. Gage, Executive Editor

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