Five-Story Trees Hoisted Into The New York Times Building To Create Open-Air Birch and Moss Garden

Amazed Onlookers Watch Fifty-Foot Tall Birch Trees Lifted Over Seventy-Foot Wall

NEW YORK – Oct. 29, 2007 – Pedestrians in the Times Square area were treated to an unusual kind of street theater early Saturday morning. Beginning at midnight, onlookers watched in amazement as a 90-foot boom crane hoisted seven, 50-foot tall paper birch trees up and over a 70-foot glass wall at The New York Times Building, nearing completion at 620 Eighth Avenue.

One by one, the 25-year-old trees were lowered into their final positions in the unique open-air birch and moss garden, the first of its kind in Manhattan. Envisioned by celebrated architect Renzo Piano and realized by landscape architects HM White Site Architects in collaboration with Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, landscape architect, the ground-floor garden is surrounded by glass walls and forms the focal point of the lobby, the retail spaces and TheTimesCenter, The New York Times Company's new state-of-the-art cultural center and performance space. Transparency was Piano's guiding design principle for the entire building, and the garden, which is even visible from the street, clearly reflects this.

MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president, Commercial & Residential Development, Forest City Ratner Companies, said, “How wonderful for the thousands of employees at The New York Times Building who will enjoy this garden daily as they enter the lobby or view it from above, through the glass walls of the building.”

”The experience of seeing the activity of the lobby, the quiet beauty of the natural garden and right into TheTimesCenter is extraordinary,” said David Thurm, vice president and chief information officer, The New York Times Company. “The fact that people can come into the lobby and see this exceptional garden, open to the sky, is truly special.”

Landscape architect Hank White of HM White Site Architects said, “The paper birch trees and the moss will create a serene and natural environment in the midst of one of the densest, most heavily trafficked parts of the city. It's a wonderful juxtaposition.”

Ms. Hahn Oberlander said, “We designed this space to fulfill Renzo's vision of a building with a garden at its heart. We limited the vegetation to moss and paper birch trees to create a simple woodland sanctuary that would complement rather than compete with the design elements of the building.”

The seven paper birch trees were shipped by flatbed truck to The New York Times Building from the High Ridge Tree Farm in central New Jersey where they were grown.

The garden is one of the last design elements to be completed at The New York Times Building, which the Times Company and other tenants began to occupy this summer. Construction of the garden will be finalized in November, following the installation of the trees, when an elegant wooden footbridge and two types of distinctive moss are installed to cover the undulating topography of the floor.

The 52-story New York Times Building, between 40th and 41st Streets on Eighth Avenue, will hold its grand opening in November. The building is topped by a 300-foot steel rooftop mast bringing the building's height to 1,046 feet.

The 1.5-million-gross-square-foot New York Times Building is owned jointly, as condominiums, by The Times Company and Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC). The Times Company owns floors 2 through 27 and FCRC owns floors 29 through 50 and floor 52, as well as 21,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. Floors 28 and 51 are jointly owned by the Times Company and FCRC.

About Forest City Ratner Companies

Forest City Ratner Companies owns and operates 32 properties in the New York metropolitan region—including 5.2 million square feet of office space. FCRC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Forest City Enterprises, Inc., a $9.2-billion NYSE-listed (ticker: FCEA & FCEB) national real estate company engaged in the ownership, development, management and acquisition of commercial and residential real estate and land throughout the United States.

About The New York Times Company

The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading media company with 2006 revenues of $3.3 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers, WQXR-FM and more than 30 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

Contacts:
For Forest City Ratner Companies:
Peter Krokondelas or Joyce Baumgarten
(212) 686-4551
pkrokondelas@getodemilly.com
jbaumgarten@getodemilly.com

For The New York Times Company:
Abbe Serphos
(212) 556-4425
serphos@nytimes.com