I have written about or posted about the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City numerous times. The Center hosts the annual HX: The Hotel Experience and Boutique Design New York trade shows. The Center is highly energy efficient and even features a green roof that has been home to honeybees and many different bird species. The New York Times just reported that in 2021 the Javits Center rooftop will be the home of a farm on the roof of the extension currently being built. This farm will certainly be unique and give the Center a competitive edge when going after meetings business.
The farm will be just shy of an acre. The Javits Center farm will have the city’s only rooftop orchard, with apples, pears, peaches and maybe cherries, some grown in a 3,200-square-foot greenhouse. There will also be vegetables—cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, carrots, arugula and mesclun greens. A company called Brooklyn Grange will manage the garden. Any produce grown will be used in the Javits Center or nearby.
The Javits Center extension is being built to hold at least a million pounds of soil, in a bed 18 inches deep. The soil, specially mixed for rooftop farming, will retain more water than ordinary soil. There will also be a water recycling system that will recirculate the runoff. The water will end up in a cistern in the basement before being pumped back up.
