Dawn redwood
50 to 60 million years ago, this massive redwood species dominated parts of the northern hemisphere. But the tree was only known to mankind from bits of rock bearing the fossil imprint of its needles; even the most recent of these were millions of years old. During World War II, in what came to be regarded as the greatest botanical discovery of the 20th century, a Chinese forester found a glade of trees deep in a valley in central China; researchers confirmed it to be the tree in the fossil record. Seed taken from these trees and shared with botanical gardens have given rise to the repopulation of metasequoia in parks and cities around the world. These trees require consistent moisture and cannot survive in areas without adequate rainfall unless they are frequently watered.
Cue magazine cover by Margaret Cusack
This cover of Cue, the mother of all city listings magazines, features a fabric illustration by artist and Boerum Hill resident Margaret Cusack. Cusack had recently begun working with neighbors to create what is now the Hoyt Street Garden in a vacant lot. With the city in a financial crisis, residents salvaged bricks from the rubble of a collapsed building to lay garden paths. Merchants chipped in; plantings were donated, planted, and tended by volunteers. As with Cusack’s muse figure, the materials of creation were at the community’s disposal, but willing hands had to take them up, and sustain what had been created.
