At the time, it seemed like a good idea. When Pure Yoga opened one and a half years ago at 203 East 86th Street, this purveyor of inner peace opted to adorn the upper portion of its two story façade with a “living wall” of plants, in varied shapes and colors, that covered every inch of its expansive surface. It was ably designed by Green Living Technologies. Quite aside from such karmic enhancements as the living wall conferred, it also proved to be a shrewd marketing maneuver. Though not the only such wall in the city, it was and remains sufficiently rare that it was able to garner a good deal of invaluable publicity. Pure Yoga, however, did not reckon with one of the sad facts of life in the big city — that only the rarest of buildings in Manhattan manages to escape the ubiquitous outrage of scaffolding bridges. And so the living wall had not been up six months when the building it inhabits, the Colorado, decided to do a bit of refacing. The scaffolding went up about a year ago and, as always, it sliced sheer across the second story of the building, entombing the living wall in constant darkness, notwithstanding its precious southern exposure.
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From left: Pure Yoga’s “living wall” at 203 East 86th Street, as it was intended, and wall today, after scaffolding was installed (right photo source: A Fine Blog)
