As days continue to warm up, Queens’ residents have something to look forward to; a summer full of events held by the Queens Botanical Garden.
One of the upcoming special occasions will be the Independence Day Asian Culture Celebration, presented by the Flushing Development Center taking place on July 3 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The event will feature performances of Chinese classical music, including Erhu (two stringed Chinese violin), Gu Zheng (Chinese plucked zither), and Yanqin (Chinese hammered dulcimer); Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian dances, including the clapping, Miao, double sword and handkerchief dances; and martial arts demonstrations by masters of Kung Fu and Tae Kwon Do. The event is free with the garden admission.
“The idea is that on the Fourth of July a lot of people go out of town. Let’s have something fun for the people who are in town,” said Susan Lacerte, executive director of the Queens Botanical Garden. “We’ve done this for several years.”
In addition, four more events have been announced for later in the summer including the Argentinean-American concert with South-American food for sale in July, Korean classical performance in August, Indian dance and music festival in September and another collaboration with the Flushing Development Center in late summer.
As part of the mission of the Queens Botanical Garden to serve the local community as an urban oasis where people, plants and cultures are celebrated, these occasions come with the intention to improve the socio-cultural integrity in the neighborhood.
“For the past 60 years Queens Botanical Garden has been free. But the city has been cutting back a lot of funding for the garden for past years. So last spring we started the policy to collect admission fees,” said Darcy Hector, the director of development.
The garden admissions are $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and $2 for students with ID and children of 3-12 years of age. For those who are used to coming in the garden for free, discounted annual memberships and limited number of coupons for special events are available.
For more information, visit www.queensbotanical.org or call 718-886-3800. The Queens Botanical Garden is located at 43-50 Main St, Flushing.
Wendy Li and Cindy Chen performed at the Queens Botanical Gardens and will be performing again during the summer
