Trains, trees and good cheer at the Botanical Gardens

This holiday season, New Yorkers lining up outside Macy’s might notice some unusual elements on the building’s façade, including acorn caps, pinecone scales, cinnamon stick curls and seeds.

It is not the Herald Square Macy’s, but rather a miniature version, one of over 150 replicas of New York landmarks on display at the New York Botanical Garden’s (NYBG) 23rd Annual Holiday Train Show, which kicks off on Saturday, Nov. 15. 

Twenty model trains and trolleys weave among replicas made of natural materials like bark, twigs, fruits and stems in the NYBG’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. 

“They’re gorgeous by themselves, but they’re even more gorgeous when you put them with the plants and the railroad,” said Paula Edwards, a botanical architect who works for Paul Busse, the designer whose studio creates the replicas. “It just comes alive.” 

On Nov. 7, Ms. Edwards, Mr. Busse and workers from NYBG unboxed shrubs and moss to place around replicas in the Victorian-style glass conservatory as they prepared for the opening.

Several model trains were already chugging along their tracks, winding around a small John F. Kennedy Airport terminal with runways marked by sunflower-seed numbers, a Guggenheim Museum whose famous cylindrical floors are made of shelf fungus and a miniature George Washington Bridge. 

“I come across it every day in my commute,” NYBG spokeswoman Melinda Manning, said while pointing out the bridge, “but it’s not as much fun as this.” 

This year’s train show also features a room full of replicas based on structures from the 1964 New York’s World Fair, including the famous Unisphere, the Tent of Tomorrow and several hot air balloons. 

Each replica starts with a photograph or blueprints, Ms. Edwards explained as she placed foliage around the model Tent of Tomorrow. 

After artists from Mr. Busse’s studio, Applied Imagination, study images of a landmark, they spend a few days searching for natural materials that resemble the structure’s parts.