The Pat Rich Memorial Bench
So on March 29, 2011, R. Paul Martin and Pickles of the North met up with Uncle Sidney Smith in front of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It was a nice, sunny day in early spring, and we were all in a pretty decent mood, which made this a rare day indeed.
At the outset let me say that this page is going to evolve over time. I have a lot of photographs from that day, and I want to post quite a few of them here. It will take time, and this page will change as I add images and text. I may even use more than one page for the story of this little excursion by everyone in our WBAI time slot.
We all entered the Brooklyn Botanic Garden through its Eastern Parkway entrance, and so the first place we visited was the Osborne Garden.
Pat Rich was a producer at WBAI years ago. She and Uncle Sidney were close friends. Pat contracted cancer and passed away in 1993. Her family and friends got together and bought a memorial plaque dedicating this bench in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to her.
Every time Sidney goes to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden he pauses at this bench to remember Pat.
Uncle Sidney usually leaves some PEZ candies in a dispenser and some orange marmalade, two of the things that Pat Rich especially enjoyed.
So this time Sidney left a Hello Kitty PEZ dispenser and a tiny jar of the orange marmalade. To the right you can see the ritual offerings.
As you enter the Osborne Garden the first thing you're greeted with is this concrete bowl that's filled with different plantings at different times. This time it was full of purple pansies! So we got yellow pansies out in front of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and purple pansies just inside it.
Yeah, I know that the sign says they're “violet,” but they look purple to me!
Beyond the purple pansies is the very nice open space of this garden. At the end are the fountain and the concrete benches flanking an art deco gateway to the rest of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
And here we're looking northwest, at the entrance we came in through. The tall apartment buildings on Eastern Parkway dominate the view in this direction, reminding you that you are still deep in the city.
And here we can see some more art deco in the free standing pillars.
There's a lot more to be posted to this Web page, but it's not all done yet. Watch this space for the updates and more photographs and commentaries.
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