New York Restaurant Uses Towers To feed Customers

Red and yellow watermelons, ripe strawberries, squash blossoms, heads of romaine and Bibb lettuces and fresh chickpeas are among the crops being lowered, using a pulley system, from the rooftop garden on a building in Greenwich Village. 

These will supply the kitchen of Bell Book & Candle, a restaurant opening in a month or so on the building’s ground floor. 

John Mooney, above, the chef, and his partner, Mick O’Sullivan, are growing more than 70 varieties of herbs, vegetables and fruits using a hydroponic automatic watering system of vertically planted structures, like little towers studded with openings for the plants. 

The pulley system is an alternative to hauling produce down six flights of stairs (there’s no elevator). 

The partners are sharing their harvest with neighborhood restaurants, but once they open, Mr. O’Sullivan estimates they will grow about 60 percent of their own restaurant’s produce.