The state of the one-story building was at the heart of the botanic garden's decision last month to suspend its scientific research program and lay off three of the program's employees, Mr. Medbury said. The move elicited swift and fierce reaction from some of the garden's supporters, who said it was abandoning one of its key missions. In the first week, a petition calling for the science center's restoration attracted more than 1,700 signatures.
The garden's leadership, which is usually engaged in the benign business of promoting blooms and seasonal programs, is now on the defensive. In recent days, it has taken pains to explain the circumstances that led to the layoffs and to pledge that the science program will eventually return. And highlighting the state of the science building, at 109 Montgomery Street — which houses the garden's herbarium of 330,000 plant specimens, laboratories and the library — is Exhibit A in that effort.
About eight years ago, the dozen staff members who worked in the 116,000-square-foot building started to notice cracks in the structure, which was renovated in the 1980s and is immediately adjacent to subway tracks that service the shuttle train. "It seems to have accelerated in the past two years," said the garden's facilities director, Rudy Rudloff. Engineers have advised the garden that the building should be vacated as soon as possible and demolished.
At the same time, the garden faced a $750,000 budget gap for the 2014 fiscal year, a result of generally declining government support over the past decade and rising employee insurance and pension costs. Mr. Medbury said that his budget office exhausted revenue-generating options, and only then pursued layoffs. Given that the science program had to vacate its building anyway, the department was an obvious target. "It was the least damaging choice of no good choices," he said.
But critics have accused the garden of taking the "botanic" out of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, leaving behind a lovely park stripped of scientific depth and rigor. They also point to the $28 million visitor center that the garden opened with fanfare last year, as well as a newly expanded Native Flora Garden that opened this spring. In addition, the garden is in the midst of a successful capital campaign, raising $90 million toward its goal of $100 million.
"It's hard to justify spending $28 million on a new visitors center when they say they can't afford to keep the science staff because of a million-dollar shortfall," said Chris Kreussling, who maintains a blog called Flatbush Gardener and has given generously to the garden in the past, earning him a spot in the President's Circle. "This is a hole they have dug for themselves because they have not prioritized science. It's nice to have those other things, but not at the expense of the actual botanists and field work."
The garden counters that the money raised for the visitor center was specifically for that purpose and could not be diverted to the science program. Likewise, the fund-raising campaign is already dedicated to specific capital improvements, program enhancements and the endowment. Further, garden officials say, plant science informs the extensive education program, which employs 30 and reaches more than 150,000 schoolchildren a year.
Despite the skepticism voiced by critics, Mr. Medbury insists that the science program, which in recent years has cataloged much of the flora of the New York region, will return. The garden is now exploring the possibility of teaming up with a developer to use the site of the current building in a way that could subsidize a new science center. He said that a builder could put up a 13-story apartment building on the site without seeking a zoning variance, and that such a project could pay for space on the ground floor for the garden's science department.
"This suspension is a hiatus," Mr. Medbury said. "We're at least three years from a new facility on this property. If anything, this has catalyzed a greater commitment to making scientific research an enduring and fundamental part of our mission."
It is not the first time the science program has been interrupted. In the 1950s, the garden built a major scientific research center in Westchester County, but that closed in the 1980s and the program was then moved to its current location.
"At several key junctures in our 100-year history, we hit the pause button and rethought what the program was," Mr. Medbury said, adding that the science program will have a greater focus on plant conservation when it returns.
In the meantime, the garden's immediate concern is moving the hundreds of thousands of dried plant specimens and its library collection into an appropriate storage space, with the proper temperature, humidity and pest-control measures. The New York Botanical Garden has offered assistance with maintaining the herbarium.
"We are looking for a low-cost or no-cost option," Mr. Medbury said. "Fortunately, we have a lot of friends."
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