DUMBO orchid man hides behind his plants

By Ariella Cohen
The Brooklyn Papers

DUMBO artists are certainly an endangered species these days — but now
one man is fighting eviction by claiming protection under the federal
Endangered Species Act.

Steve Ludlum, a painter, photographer and amateur botanist, isn’t
seeking the federal protection for himself, but for the nearly 1,000
species of imported orchids that he raises in his third-floor hothouse.

He may be onto something: Some of his orchids are classified as
“endangered” under international law.

The owner of the former soap factory under the Manhattan Bridge wants to
flatten the building to build a 10-story loft-style condo tower.

“Me and my plants aren’t going to take the bullet so a developer can
make money,” said Ludlum, standing in the humid, man-made ecosystem he
has spent $100,000 building.

“The last landlord didn’t mind. He thought the whole thing was neat.”

Ludlum’s orchids fill a room the size of a studio apartment. Five
ceiling fans and a ventilation system regulate the temperature. A
hand-rigged irrigation system pipes water to the plants, sending earthy
runoff to a drain behind the building.

Last week, the unassuming botanist — a regular on the orchid circuit —
filed a lawsuit against his landlord in federal court, charging that his
eviction would “result in [the] loss of endangered species” and violate
laws protecting his threatened Phragipedium and Paphiopedilum
“ladyslipper” orchids.

“Orchid plants are habitat-specific,” he charged in court papers.
“Removal from their current location, which is a necessary and required
controlled environment, shall constitute a taking of the protected
orchid plant.”

Ludlum said the building’s current owner, identified in city documents
as Henry Kotowitz, would welcome his quiet enterprise were it not for
the fact that a condo conversion would be so lucretive.
Neither Kotowitz nor his lawyer returned phone calls from The Brooklyn
Papers.

The case is the first of its kind, but wildlife experts said that Ludlum
will face problems proving that his imported flora require protection
from the feds.

Federal law protects endangered species from “take” or “harm” — terms
that can include eviction — but the law only applies to plants protected
under state jurisdiction, meaning Ludlum would have better luck if the
orchids were native to New York.

“It’s hard to know what kind of [federal] protections there could be for
an international plant,” said Edward Grace, senior special agent for the
Fish and Wildlife Service.

Neighbors know Ludlum as “the orchid man” and recognize his apartment by
the orange glow his high-intensity greenhouse lights send out of the
battered old factory.

His quirky connection to he neighborhood goes beyond his crops.

Ludlum was in DUMBO on 9-11, and, as he watched the World Trade Center
collapse, took a photograph that ended up on the cover of The New York
Times and won him a Pulitzer Prize.

If his endangered species lawsuit doesn’t work, Ludlum has a fallback
plan: He’s also planning to sue Kotowitz on the grounds that the plans
he’s filed with the Department of Buildings show a development that is
larger than the law allows.

Kotowitz’s architect, Robert Scarano, is currently under investigation
for allegedly ignoring such zoning rules.