Daffodils and 9/11

By Paul Richter

The first sign that spring is here is when the daffodils start to bloom. The daffodils are by the Ferry terminal, at Tribute Park, in city parks and in gardens throughout Rockaway. You will even find daffodils blooming on the sand dune at Beach 127th Street. But the daffodils symbolize more than just the start of spring.  Since 2001, millions of daffodil bulbs have been planted throughout the city as part of a 9/11 remembrance project.

Lynden Miller, New Yorkers for Parks (NY4P) Board Member and public garden designer, got a phone call from her friend Hans van Waardenburg, a Dutch bulb grower, who had just seen on TV the burning, crumbling World Trade Center. And he asked, what can I do to help? And being Dutch, he said, let me give you some beauty and color in years to come. He offered her one million tulips. Miller knew that tulips would be eaten by rats, so she suggested daffodils would be better. Rotterdam, a city bombed in 1940, also became a part of this extraordinary response to the tragedy. This spontaneous act of empathy and kindness, something that they knew would give pleasure, was very special. Constance Casey, who was working as a full-time assistant gardener in the New York Parks department, found herself part of a team planting one million daffodil bulbs around the city of New York. Constance remembers how the Parks Commissioner at the time, Adrian Benepe, said he pictured “a ribbon of yellow around the island of Manhattan.”  That fall, 10,000 volunteers joined NY4P and Benepe to plant the bulbs in every borough.

It didn’t end after just one year. New Yorkers for Parks’ Daffodil Project is the largest annual volunteer effort in NYC history, conceived as a living memorial to the victims of September 11. Since the Daffodil Project’s inception in 2001, over nine million daffodil bulbs have been distributed for free, planted by thousands of volunteers in the fall, and celebrated as some of the first flowers to bloom come spring.

In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg named the daffodil the city’s official flower.

Adam Ganser, the current Executive Director of New Yorkers for Parks, states, “From the moment of that first sort of extraordinary gift where we partnered with the Parks Department, our board member Lynden Miller was really the face of that project, the Daffodil project. From that first year going forward, we have been raising money every year to buy daffodil bulbs ever since that first large donation. So we really work with a lot of partner corporate partners and philanthropic folks to raise the money each year to give away daffodil bulbs every year in the fall. And it’s, you know, it’s a beloved program. We talk about it now as the largest volunteer program in the city’s history. So many people participate year after year, but it’s grown every year as well. In all, I think we’re up to around 12 or 13 million bulbs distributed over the 20 some years of the project. They’re in every corner of the city. The Daffodil Project is an opportunity for New Yorkers to come together and create a beautiful, living memorial for those we’ve lost, sparking healing, togetherness, and joy.”

The Daffodil Project is a sprawling citywide tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. It has quietly become what former New York City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benape called “the world’s largest living memorial.”