A longstanding idea to create a garden inside the walls of the old Newburgh City Club has resurfaced.

The plan is part of the Strongroom project that has completed several installations within the city. Formed in 2016, Strongroom installations take place in temporary sites in the City of Newburgh, focusing primarily on solo installations in spaces that aim to activate both architecture and artwork, while providing quality art experiences for both the local community and visitors.

Strongroom founder Kelly Schroer told the City of Newburgh Arts and Cultural Commission that plans were in the works to create a jungle of plants and mature trees growing inside the now roofless Newburgh City Club buildings in the summer of 2019. Strongroom had invited Installation Artist Martin Roth to come Newburgh and he was especially inspired by this site, not only for its incredible history, but also the immediate beauty of the structure being overtaken by nature. Roths prior projects include growing grass on rugs inside a castle, inserting fruit trees inside another structure and “between October and December 2009 I transformed my art studio into a bird retreat which housed 6 finches, only to be viewed via a peephole in the door,” according to his website.
Sadly, though, Roth passed away before the project could get underway. A kickstarter campaign to raise $6,000 for the project was cancelled in June of 2019, having raised only $2,481.

Schroer was willing to make another go at in last year, but the COVID pandemic prevented engineering inspection of the City Club building on Grand Street.

“The city council has approved it, like, three times,” said Schroer, who is hoping to launch another kickstart campaign with the hope of creating a garden this summer, and hoping the council will approve it again.

“I just want to see the artists’ vision through,” she said.
The former City Club, which lies in ruin is especially significant in that it is one of the last standing structures in the city designed by famed landscape architect and Newburgh native son Andrew Jackson Downing. The building was designed in the early 1850s by Downing and Calvert Vaux, who also designed New York’s Central Park and Newburgh’s Downing Park, as a memorial to his late friend who died at a young age. It is one of the earliest Second Empire houses in the United States, but fell into disrepair during the late 1960s. An attempt to restore it in the 1970s by Irish restorer Brian Thompson ended in a structure fire that severely damaged the building. The city has several times solicited restoration proposals for the structure, most recently in the spring of 2021.

Schroer said, if approvals and funding are secured, the garden would probably be open to the public from June through October of this year. The main entrance to the building would be the side that faces the Newburgh Free Library. There’s a part of the building that should not be accessed, because of structural issues, and it will be blocked off. Strong winds, she added, will also close the exhibit.

In the meantime, Schroer is also looking for volunteers on planting days and any sort of help with marketing or fundraising.

The arts & culture commission members were generally receptive to the proposal, but could issue no formal recommendation to the city, as it does not yet have a process in place to approve or evaluate proposals.

For more on the project and other Strongroom installations, visit strongroom.us.