Mendel Krinsky’s Backyard Hobby

By COLlive reporter

An article about the Sukkos holiday has taken New York Daily News to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights where one resident goes the extra mile to decorate his Sukkah, “using real organic materials coming from their own garden.”

R’ Mendel Krinsky, a property manager with a company that owns buildings around New York City and lives on Carroll Street, uses flowers he grows himself.

He plants certain varietals in the summer, nurses them diligently through the hot summer months, then hangs them in his sukkah as decorations for the week-long holiday, reports Jason Sheftell.

“People come from all around to see what the flowers are like this year,” says Krinsky, whose father is Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, Mazkir of the Rebbe and Chairman of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch.

He said he enjoyed “gardening and poking around in the backyard. I do it for the enjoyment of my family and friends.”

This year, Krinsky lined the sukkah with mums for background and used chloris and multicolored leaves to spice things up, said the article which appeared in the daily paper and on Yahoo News.

Krinsky builds his sukkah in his back garden, where he uses cedar planks to line the top of the structure and creates a pergola for a ceiling where he lays bamboo.

On any given night they can have 26 to 27 people in the sukkah, including his in-laws from Chicago. His wife Miriam Krinsky does all the cooking.

“As many flowers as I have, my wife has as many recipes,” he said.