We have been spending the semester an hour outside New York City and commuting in. The other day I took this photo of One World Trade Center, a beautiful building. No nature in sight in this picture, right? But it's one of the world's greenest buildings and as a beacon is visible for 20 miles.
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| View of One World Trade Center |
This building is at the epicenter of our nation's remembered stress. I was thinking about this the other day when we visited the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. After we visited, I read all about the site at www.911memorial.org: the sustainable design; the forest of trees; the waterfalls that line the footprints of the Twin Towers, almost an acre in size; the Oculus, a train station designed to look like a dove in flight. By interacting with nature, the architects have created an oasis of respectful calm where once terror reigned.
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| WTC Oculus, Waterfalls, Names |
On our walk around the area, we paused by hundreds of tulips blooming in front of a waterfront commercial building filled with commuters and shoppers. What a lovely natural environment for stress relief after a commute into the City or long day at work. There are tables and benches open to everyone, no one was being run off. The waterfront itself is so inviting, filled with grownups and kids enjoying the outdoors.
Spending time in a city with so much concrete and bustle, I wanted to know why physiologically being in nature is good for us. It turns out that being in nature boosts our immune systems. Like singing and exercise, just being in the natural world produces hormones that reduce stress. Walking and breathing in fresh air stimulates our circulation. Flower fragrances calm us. People find that being in the natural world makes them happier and helps to banish feelings of loneliness or depression.
There's a graveyard just next to the 9/11 Memorial. So fitting. Graveyards abound in almost every old city all over the world. They too are places of respite. I read that President George Washington retreated to this Chapel to pray just after his inauguration. Some of these graves would have been there then. Don't you also find graveyards to be a calming part of our natural world? People of all ages were rambling through this graveyard, noting the old stones and the loving remarks carved in them as the living remember the dead. No one looked stressed.
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| Brookfield Place, Riverside, NYC |
Spending time in a city with so much concrete and bustle, I wanted to know why physiologically being in nature is good for us. It turns out that being in nature boosts our immune systems. Like singing and exercise, just being in the natural world produces hormones that reduce stress. Walking and breathing in fresh air stimulates our circulation. Flower fragrances calm us. People find that being in the natural world makes them happier and helps to banish feelings of loneliness or depression.
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| St. Paul's Chapel Graveyard |
