From Nature Rising

by Mary Jasch

Gilbert W. Glass gets back to nature every day on Central Park West. High above the Manhattan asphalt, he lunches among cherry trees and morning glories. There are vines here that birds brought and trees and flowers that Glass and his friend, Barbara Hellmann, spirited across town, then up to the 12th floor apartment where Glass lives.

A retired mechanical engineer, Glass is trying for a little sweeter air around his digs with a terrace gardenﾃつｭ just a step outside his living room. For him, greenery is essential, for New York and all its niceties are still hard-surfaced.

The view from his penthouse porch westward on 63rd is the opera house and Lincoln Center. Across the street is the landmark Y, brought here brick by brick from the Mediterranean, and Central Park to the east is just a skip away.

"Most people who live in New York live in mechanical things ﾃつｭ like buildings, drink whiskey and walk in streets with fumes. It's all man-made pollution," he says. "The garden itself is the only thing that comes from nature."

Glass started his garden about ten years ago after he sold his company, which manufactured and supplied mechanical systems to industry along the eastern seaboard, to its employees.

After that, he invested in businesses hoping to learn and not lose too much money. "When I lost money in various businesses, I got tired of looking for one to make profitable. I had more time at home. I did painting, sculpture." And he planted a garden.

Now this socially conscious philanthropist/investor still needs the serenity that only elemental nature brings.

"In New York, gardens are the natural life of the world," he says. "Some people live in the country and see plants and trees grow in a living world. If there's no garden in New York, there's a big thing missing."

If someone wants some green, they can go down in to the fume-ridden street, Glass says, and walk over to a little place called a park. But parks are expensive and far between. He says the city understands the need in people to connect and plants trees along the crowded avenues but they, too, are expensive.

"Human beings living together in a congenial setting need gardens, if you need that sort of thing. If you're a broker and deal in money or machinery, you don't concern yourself with that. You pack up and go away somewhere else," he adds.

"People normally have a garden in their backyard, but here they have to pay with lots of money."

In the approximately 600 apartments at Glass's address, many terraces lay barren. Glass says people have neither the time nor money for hauling plants and pots across town and up a dozen floors. They use most of their income to take care of living expenses.

"People come here to make their mark," he says. "It's a building of transients with money. To have a garden, you must have a need to appreciate the finer things."

Glass's own terrace garden reflects the fact that what makes each garden an Eden is the individual New Yorker ﾃつｭ heirs and seekers of fortune, modern-day wranglers etching a living from the paved land, artists scurrying toward their rainbow.


On his terrace, the cultivated fancies mingle with the wild natives. Lobelia surrounds miniature roses and Virginia creeper dropped by birds winds its way through a stylized iron rail. Astilbe in bloom and hostas grow alongside juniper and rhododendron. Ornamental cherry tree salutes 63rd street across the terrace from maple. Hens and chicks, blue hydrangea and a boisterous blue morning glory share the sun. There are colorful annuals and smelly herbs. (Yes, he uses them. "I never know what's in the salad until it's over.")

Cedar planters mix with terra cotta, tubs, bowls, boxes and pots ﾃつｭ even a blue garbage can sports a grape vine. Decoys decorate the railing.

Glass's design amounts to him and Hellmann "going down to the market and buying $100 of this and $200 of that and putting it here and there." Their likes differ, so the garden is a blend of different plant preferences.

"Nobody is too badly hurt," Glass says. "There has to be an overall pleasant picture of comfort in the garden without anything outstanding, like a bird cage or something. It seems very natural like an English garden."

He likes only occasional blooms to show color against a wall of green. She likes flowers. But he says terrace gardening is more than just a challenge to grow something pretty or useful. Plants are put in artificial environments and considerations are legion.

Glass gives credence to certain elements when designing a terrace garden, such as the arrangement of space and using it effectively. And there's the factor of weight ﾃつｭ"You have to be careful to keep the lighter weight, smaller planters out near the edge of the terrace and the heavier ones moved toward the building."

When Hellmann visits Glass, she spends 20% of her time in the garden, and he spends 5 to 10% when at home.

"I have lunches for people out there and in the evening we have a drink. She uses it because she likes flowers. Now in my dotage, I have more time. I like the garden. I like the color. Being in machinery, flowers are a good contrast."

"Gardens fulfill the call of nature and having a good life in New York if you have that need," he says. "If you don't have a garden, you're like in a machine shop."

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published August 01, 2003