Foliage Garden
Foliage Garden
120 West 28th StreetNew York, NY 10001
212 989 3089
M-F 6am-3pm; Sa 7am-2pm
Everyone on West 28th between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue has a story to tell about life on the garden block, but I found one of the workers at Foliage Garden’s story to be the most inspiring. “I was raised in the Flower District. My entire life is wrapped up in this street,” she told me. “I invested my life here.” After 9/11, however, she made the decision to move upstate, where she felt safer raising her daughter.
Not long after, she came running back to the city at the call of her dear childhood friend. Maryann Finnegan had recently lost her husband and needed help running Foliage Garden, a retail and wholesale market that sells magnificent orchids and a multitude of other plants. The part-time worker at Foliage proudly told me that the shop has been in the same location for over thirty-five years, having opened in 1981. Maryann added, “We are now the oldest plant store on the street.” She then said that what differentiates her from everyone else is, “we have our own greenhouses under glass on Long Island.”
Maryann and her team have befriended many of the people who created the Flower District a long time ago. Sadly, her co-worker related that “so many of the old men have passed away.” There are still, however, a few remaining who have wonderful stories to share. “There is so much history on this block,” she continued. “We were once called the Times Square of Flowers.” She described a time when every single storefront was filled with flowers. Today, she is pleased that she came back to Manhattan. “I can put up with anything here because I still love it – it’s my passion.”
