THE EMERGENCE AND EFFECTS OF COMMUNITY GARDENS IN NYC
RESEARCH
WRITING
NATURAL SYSTEMS
As a part of my Natural Systems class, I chose to explore the formation of community gardens in New York City.
What economic/social conditions lead to their formation and how people sought to recalaim their land and it’s evolution through the years.
What economic/social conditions lead to their formation and how people sought to recalaim their land and it’s evolution through the years.
Community gardens in New York City are green open spaces located on urban lots once occupied by buildings that were abandoned and dismantled during the economic crisis of the 1970s. Dealing with a devastated environment and the social and physical problems that it attracted, resident groups cleared the lots and cultivated the land. (Eizenberg, 2012)
New York saw its first community garden in 1962, El Jardín del Paraíso, in Lower East Side. A lot of factors play a vital role in their formation.
By 1955, nearly 700,000 Puerto Ricans had arrived. By the mid-1960s, more than a million had. (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, n.d)
New York saw a large influx of immigrants, mainly from agrarian cultures,
New York saw its first community garden in 1962, El Jardín del Paraíso, in Lower East Side. A lot of factors play a vital role in their formation.
By 1955, nearly 700,000 Puerto Ricans had arrived. By the mid-1960s, more than a million had. (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, n.d)
New York saw a large influx of immigrants, mainly from agrarian cultures,
play a vital role in forming community gardens. During this time, there was also a steady decline of the administrational services provided to the citizens due to the fiscal crisis the city faced during the 1970s. Firehouses were closed, sanitation and other services were curtailed – most notably in poorer communities.(New York City Community Garden Coalition, 2010) Due to this, most middle-class people fled to the suburbs, leaving a lot of abandoned lots that attracted criminal activities and vagrants or just turned into dumping grounds. Landlords turned to arson to extract insurance money instead of renovating the property. Residents of the neighborhood felt underserved and saw this as an opportunity to build collective strategies to combat this.
The Bronx was literally on fire in 1977 (note the burned out buildings in the background.) This type of neglect by city officials, “fueled by white flight,” led to people taking matters in their hands (Photo by Alain Le Garsmeur—Getty Images.)
During this time, there was also a steady decline of the administrational services provided to the citizens due to the fiscal crisis the city faced during the 1970s. Firehouses were closed, sanitation and other services were curtailed – most notably in poorer communities. Firehouses were closed, sanitation and other services were curtailed – most notably in poorer communities.(New York City Community Garden Coalition, 2010)
Due to this, most middle-class people fled to the suburbs, leaving a lot of abandoned lots that attracted criminal activities and vagrants or just turned into dumping grounds. Landlords turned to arson to extract insurance money instead of renovating the property. Residents of the neighborhood felt underserved and saw this as an opportunity to build collective strategies to combat this.
Due to this, most middle-class people fled to the suburbs, leaving a lot of abandoned lots that attracted criminal activities and vagrants or just turned into dumping grounds. Landlords turned to arson to extract insurance money instead of renovating the property. Residents of the neighborhood felt underserved and saw this as an opportunity to build collective strategies to combat this.
In the face of this form of racialized state violence, residents engaged in guerilla gardening and sweat equity projects to reclaim unoccupied land and convert it into community gardens and green spaces. The result is that community gardens in the city are concentrated in racially segregated neighborhoods that are predominantly of color, working-class, with a preponderance of renter-occupied housing, and limited access to public parks.
Community gardening started on the Lower East Side during the urban crisis of the 1970s that devastated the neighborhood and other neighborhoods in New York City. The Lower East Side is a large area, covering the traditional ethnic neighborhoods of Little Italy, Chinatown, the Jewish Lower East Side south of Houston Street, and the largely Puerto Rican area to the north and east, known as 'Loisaida' (Martinez, 2009)
Community gardening started on the Lower East Side during the urban crisis of the 1970s that devastated the neighborhood and other neighborhoods in New York City. The Lower East Side is a large area, covering the traditional ethnic neighborhoods of Little Italy, Chinatown, the Jewish Lower East Side south of Houston Street, and the largely Puerto Rican area to the north and east, known as 'Loisaida' (Martinez, 2009)
Liz Christy, a resident from Lower East Side, founded the Green Guerillas, a grass-roots organization that planted flowers and herbs that went unnoticed until they bloomed. They wrote to the administration, filed petitions, and made speeches to community boards in an effort to reclaim the land they lived in. Along with this movement, there was an ongoing parallel collective strategy of urban homesteading, which rehabilitated deserted buildings. All community gardens are unique in their structure and have different rules for being a garden member.
For example; These are the rules for the Liz Christy garden; After you have spent 20 hours volunteering (and in the course of that time, you will meet some of the other Gardeners), you will be eligible to receive a key to the garden. After 40 hours of volunteer work, you will be considered a Gardener with voting rights.
The Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy) area of central Brooklyn was especially hard hit by disinvestment and planned shrinkage in the late 1970s, an injustice that residents resisted by creating a significant number of community gardens through their collective sweat equity efforts. (Myers et al., 2020)
For example; These are the rules for the Liz Christy garden; After you have spent 20 hours volunteering (and in the course of that time, you will meet some of the other Gardeners), you will be eligible to receive a key to the garden. After 40 hours of volunteer work, you will be considered a Gardener with voting rights.
The Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy) area of central Brooklyn was especially hard hit by disinvestment and planned shrinkage in the late 1970s, an injustice that residents resisted by creating a significant number of community gardens through their collective sweat equity efforts. (Myers et al., 2020)
While in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn (which was one of the most heavily red-lined areas in Brooklyn), another such movement is emerging. A 62-year older woman named Hattie Carthan led a campaign to preserve a historic Magnolia Grandiflora tree from being demolished. (The New York Preservation Archive Project, 1998)
She mobilized her fellow community members into beautifying their neighborhood which soon led to the Parks Department offering help with tree planting and conservation.
The benefits include the garden providing fresh, locally grown, culturally appropriate vegetables and food to low-income communities and fostering relationships among neighbors of various ages. More fundamentally, community gardens offer users a heightened sense of attachment to place via a tactile relationship to the land and nature. Long-time gardeners have a noticeably strong connection to the city as a natural space.
She mobilized her fellow community members into beautifying their neighborhood which soon led to the Parks Department offering help with tree planting and conservation.
The benefits include the garden providing fresh, locally grown, culturally appropriate vegetables and food to low-income communities and fostering relationships among neighbors of various ages. More fundamentally, community gardens offer users a heightened sense of attachment to place via a tactile relationship to the land and nature. Long-time gardeners have a noticeably strong connection to the city as a natural space.
But the success of community gardens is still a topic of contention since, in the United States, books, magazines, and social media often paint a picture of young white people as the most innovative farmers and gardeners in the post–World War II era, despite the many people of color who have been growing food in their neighborhoods and hometowns for decades and even generations. (Reynolds and Cohen, 2016)
Community gardens in New York City are a paradigmatic example of counter-hegemonic spaces. They had been produced collectively by residents of the most neglected locales, only to become a target for capitalist development later. (Eizenberg, 2012) In addition to the dynamic of public representation of urban agriculture and its potential effect on social equity, establishing new farms and gardens in low-income communities can stimulate or exacerbate gentrification (the process by which increases property values and new investments directly displace residents and businesses, or indirectly lead to displacement as real estate prices and taxes on rising property values become prohibitively expensive for existing residents. (Reynolds and Cohen 2016, 8
Which makes me wonder how we might we build frameworks that help us keep solutions in the community they were built for?
References:
Eizenberg, Efrat. 'Actually Existing Commons: Three Moments of Space of Community Gardens in New York City. Antipode, vol. 44, no. 3, June 2012, pp. 764–82. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00892.x.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. (n.d.). Migrating to a New Land | Puerto Rican/Cuban | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress. [online] Available at: https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/puerto-rican-cuban/migrating-to-a-new-land/
Anon, (2010). Where We Stand and How We Got Here. [online] Available at: https://nyccgc.org/about/history/ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2021]
Reynolds, Kristin, and Nevin Cohen. Beyond the Kale. University of Georgia Press, 2016.
Martinez, M. (2009). Attack of the Butterfly Spirits: The Impact of Movement Framing by Community Garden Preservation Activists. Social Movement Studies, 8(4), 323–339. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742830903234213
(See http://lizchristygarden.us/ for more information)
Justin Sean Myers, Prita Lal, Sofya Aptekar (2020). 'A Recipe for Gentrification: Food, Power, and Resistance in the City', in Smith, Chapter 11. https://rb.gy/irgvcp
Anon, (n.d.). Hattie Carthan |. [online] Available at: https://www.nypap.org/preservation-history/hattie-carthan