The Preservation and Demolition of Community Gardens in New York’s Alphabet City

Community gardening in its modern form rose out of the rampant real estate abandonment of the 1970s. New Yorkers around the city, fed up with trash-strewn, rat-infested vacant lots, cleared the rubble and began to plant gardens.(1) Although this most recent period of community gardening dates back to the early 1970s, the idea of community gardens is much older. There has always been a concern over open space creation and preservation in New York City. Frederick Olmstead, the creator of New York’s Central Park, wrote also on the subject of smaller parks. It seems that he may have envisioned the community gardens when he wrote in 1870, “numerous small grounds so distributed through a large town that some one of them could be easily reached by a short walk from every house, would be more desirable than a single area of great extent however rich in landscape attractions it might be.�(2)
The benefits of such scattered oases are many. Olmstead clearly recognized the environmental benefits of such spaces, often referring to parks as the “lungs of the city.� Gardens also work towards the goal of creating a more civil society providing city youth with an alternative to street life and vice.(3) Community gardening is a community stabilizing method that create common goals with recognizable rewards for neighborhood residents working together.(4) American cities have very little informal public space available in which groups can meet. Community gardens provide space for political and social interaction as well as the enjoyment of nature. They also serve as outlets of expression shaped by the people who use them. This self determination vests gardeners with feelings of ownership and control, while on the most basic level, they make city streets more livable by providing an escape from the built environment.(5)
During New York City’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the East Village (or Alphabet City) was in dire need of the benefits that community gardens offer. Real estate abandonment, neighborhood disinvestment and arson left gaps in the tenement lined blocks of the historically slum neighborhood. Empty lots where buildings once stood became de-facto garbage dumps and illicit drug bazaars. Community residents, frustrated with the degraded quality of life that existed and the City’s lack of action and services took matters into their own hands. Loose knit groups of neighbors began to clear lots and plant gardens in an effort to make their neighborhood safer and more livable.(6)
The gardeners of Alphabet City began as squatters. They seized abandoned property and improved upon it. It was not until 1978 that the City recognized this method of community renewal and institutionalized it with the creation of the Operation Green Thumb Program. Green Thumb is a quasi-governmental agency created with federal anti-poverty money empowered by the city to issue leases and over see the management of community gardens city-wide.(7) While many gardens sought, and received, Green Thumb leases, others sprung up without official mandate. Under the Green Thumb Program, the City considers gardens an interim use of the land until a more permanent use, such as housing development, can be found. The interim status of gardens was a non-issue while the real estate market was soft. Garden preservation did not become an issue until the early 1980s with the planned demolition of Adam Purple’s Garden of Eden on Forsyth Street. After a protracted court battle, bulldozers demolished the garden in 1986 signaling the danger to all community gardens in New York City.(8) A burgeoning economy and housing market created a demand for new housing construction in Manhattan. By the late 1980s developers acquired garden lots on which to build housing.(9) The stock market crash and subsequent recession reduced the demand for new housing and the gardens were spared temporarily. As the economy began to improve in the early 1990s the concept of “interim use� became blatantly clear to Green Thumb gardeners. At this point, gardeners had to consider issues of preservation, not just cultivation.

--The Green Oasis Community Garden--
The Green Oasis Community Garden located on East 8th Street between Avenues C and D was founded in 1981 and received a Green Thumb Lease in 1984. The garden is located on five contiguous lots of what was one of the most desolate blocks in Alphabet City peppered with abandoned buildings and vacant lots. From the beginning, this garden’s mission was to create a safe environment for community residents of all ages to interact in a positive and constructive way.(10)
A model community garden, Green Oasis cultivated relationships with many local and city-wide institutions from the outset. The founders saw the garden as a resource for the surrounding community and its growth reflected this view. The physical plan of the Green Oasis Garden is mindful of the community’s needs and the garden’s growth and modification has reflected those needs. The garden started with a grass lawn for children to play and an area of traditional garden plots. Later, gardeners added flagstone and marble pathways to make the garden wheelchair accessible. The gardeners constructed raised beds to make gardening easier for elderly and wheelchair bound individuals. There is a gazebo, stage, grape arbor and pond that all add to the utility and beauty of this garden.
The garden is a space where the local community has been able to come together for nearly twenty years and work together across racial, economic and cultural divides.(11) The membership is diverse in every aspect, it is important to note that the most diversity exists in the ranks of neighborhood youth that flock to the garden in the afternoons and all summer long.(12) Even for those who do not actively garden there, its mere presence makes the block safer, cleaner and more aesthetically beautiful. The presence of a garden puts more “eyes on the street� and those who volunteer their time tending to the garden have an investment in the cleanliness and safety of the surrounding neighborhood. Less criminal activity occurs and those who pass by on the street feel safer.(13) Not only do people affect the garden, the garden, and the opportunities it affords, affect the people. The garden acts as a creative outlet for people’s imaginations. They can express themselves in a multitude of ways, and all forms of expression lead to a feeling of identity and control, collective and individual.(14)
The garden sponsors therapeutic gardening programs with United Cerebral Palsy and other treatment organizations. It has acted as a chapel for weddings, baptisms and memorials as well as many other religious and secular celebrations. The garden is an invaluable public resource that contributes greatly to the quality of life of neighborhood residents of all backgrounds.
Many local schools used the garden as an outdoor science class room. Teachers have designed entire curricula around the garden’s Koi pond. Rafael Torres, a science teacher at P.S. 19 used the Koi to teach his students about fish, pet care and natural versus artificial habitat. In his own words, “The children learned responsibility and the amount of work required to care for living creatures.�(15) Lester Katz, the Principal of P.S. 94, also applauded the garden for helping students in his school to learn about the natural sciences in a fun and exciting way that contributes significantly to their own personal development.(16) A teacher at P.S. 61 also cited the contributions that Green Oasis makes to the education of local students. “They write about their piece of the garden and how proud they are when they ‘change nothing into something.’�(17)
Green Oasis created an informal after school program for all neighborhood youth in addition to its formal partnerships with local schools. It was a way to encourage youth to become involved in, and open up the garden as a safe place for them to spend time during the afternoons. Mathew Perrin, an active member of the Green Oasis garden spoke in great length about the positive effects that the garden has on the neighborhood children. Many of the local youths do not have the opportunity for constructive or meaningful interaction with adults. In the garden, their help is appreciated and recognizable. “Some of them come from pretty terrible home environments, and they can’t wait to get out of that apartment and get in the garden just to be around a place where they feel safe and validated—that’s a big thing, your existence to be validated, [for some one to say] ‘I see you, I hear you, I’m willing to interact with you.’ Projecting that long term really does anchor a neighborhood.�(18)
The Garden has played host to countless theatrical performances. In 1987, gardeners built a stage for a performance of an original play that depicted the history of the garden. Children made masks and acted in the play inaugurating a tradition of performance that has continued ever since. In 1995, faculty from the University of Puerto Rico were involved in a rendition of a Garcia Lorca play. The Bread And Puppet Theater Company and the Theater for The New City have both used the garden for performances and held theater workshops for neighborhood youth. There are frequent concerts and poetry readings as well.(19)
For many years Green Oasis has maintained relationships with the Green Guerillas, one of the first community gardening groups in New York, and the Trust For Public Land (TPL), a national non-profit that has acted in an advisory and advocacy role. TPL has supported the garden in its bid for permanent status and has been a long-time financial supporter of various capital projects.(20) Merrill Lynch has also been a long time partner of the garden. Each year, Merrill Lynch sends a number of their new recruits to help in the garden for a series of days as part of its corporate citizenship program. The volunteers complete massive projects that would otherwise be nearly impossible to accomplish without their assistance.(21)
Green Oasis was one of ten sites that Community Board 3 released to the New York City Housing Partnership for development in September of 1995.(22) This oasis in the city was almost lost to make room for low rise subsidized housing. The gardeners appealed to the Community Board to rescind its decision and mounted a preservation campaign for permanent status. Gardeners lobbied the Community Board, the Parks Department, the New York City Housing Partnership and the Mayor’s Office. Green Oasis had a broad base of support that included TPL and Jane Weissman, the director of Operation Green Thumb, then Borough President Ruth Messinger and countless other political figures and local institutions such as New York University, Parsons School of Design and Mary Mount College. After much political maneuvering on the part of the garden, the Community Board changed its recommendation and Green Oasis is now a permanent community garden falling under the auspices of the Parks Department.(23)
Green Oasis’s successful bid for preservation resulted from the wide array of programming the garden has sponsored over the years and continues to sponsor today. The Community Board will only endorse for preservation and Parks status those gardens that have strong ties with the community and represent a true asset to the community. Green Oasis, by all measures, passes this test. The gardeners displayed a critical political and media savvy that helped them publicize and gain support for their cause. Possibly the strongest contributing factor was Green Oasis’s long standing relationship with Operation Green Thumb, the Green Guerillas and the Trust for Public Land.

--The Chico Mendez Mural Garden--
In 1987, Community Board 3 created a development and land disposition plan that is now known as the Cross-subsidy Plan. The Community Board recommended that certain abandoned buildings and vacant lots be given to non-profit and for-profit housing developers to further the creation of housing in the district.(24) The plan was brokered at a high point in the real estate market before the October stock market crash that resulted in a collapse of the real estate values. Very little housing development took place in the following years, and some of the lots that were designated for housing development became community gardens.(25) One such garden located on 11th Street between Avenues A and B was the Chico Mendez Mural Garden (here after referred to as the “Mendez Garden�).
In 1995 a group of residents on East 11th Street decided to make a coordinated effort to push the drug dealers out of a fledgling garden on the North side of the street.(26) The garden had begun to take root in 1991, but suffered many setbacks at the hands of drug dealers. The residents committed themselves to making a safe and beautiful garden for their children and their neighborhood. They named it after the slain Brazilian rain forest defender Chico Mendez. The garden grew quickly and from the beginning it was open and used by many residents. Murals decorated the surrounding tenements’ walls and sculptures accentuated the pathways of the garden.(27) Immediately the block began to improve, the drug dealing diminished in the vicinity of the garden and there was now a safe haven in which neighborhood children could play and local residents could socialize.(28)
Before the Mendez Garden became fully organized, the 11th Street Block Association had requested a Green Thumb lease for the site. When Green Thumb responded to the application, drug dealers had reclaimed the garden temporarily and the garden did not respond to the agency. By the time the garden became organized in earnest in 1995, Green Thumb would not give them a lease and stopped giving out new leases. The garden flourished in its illegitimate state and began holding open hours every day and a weekly event known as the Molitov Cocktail Hour every Friday evening, without exception.
The Mendez Garden became an anchor for the improvement of the surrounding neighborhood. In a few short years the garden had become as beautiful as any other in the city. It had many similar attributes as the Green Oasis Garden. There was a diverse membership, rich cultural and artistic programs and prolific open hours. The positive effect the garden had on the block made its location ripe for development.(29) In 1996, the City served the Mendez Garden and four others in the surrounding area with eviction notices. The developer who had been promised the site in 1987 was ready to build. Like the gardeners of Green Oasis and other Lower East Side gardeners before them, those of Mendez Garden vowed to fight for their right to the land.
The gardeners mounted a campaign to rescind the City Council vote that released the gardens for development. The proposal misrepresented the gardens as blighted vacant lots, as is often the case. Many of the Council members who voted for their release were shocked to find out that the lots were indeed thriving community gardens. Sal Albanese and Tom Duane were two very vocal supporters of the Mendez Garden who voted unwittingly for its destruction. The Mendez Garden hosted numerous rallies. Including two at which Sal Albanese, representatives from Ruth Messinger’s and Al Sharpton’s campaigns, Tom Duane, Adam Clayton Powell the 4Th and Margarita Lopez voiced their support of community gardeners and the Mendez Garden in particular.(30) The campaigns of the summer of 1997 attracted significant political and media attention to the issue of community garden preservation.
The gardeners also mounted two court cases aimed at staving off the garden demolitions. One charged that an environmental impact study was required because the housing developments were part of a larger plan to build more than 2500 units of housing around the city; however a judge found it to lack merit.(31) Six artists who used the Mendez Garden to exhibit murals and sculptures filed a federal law suit under the 1990 Visual Artists’ Rights Act that protects works of visual art from destruction or mutilation. This suit, too, was found to be without merit and a temporary stay of eviction expired leaving the gardens vulnerable.(32) It was not until the pre-dawn hours of December 30th, 1997 that the bulldozers moved in, and, in a few hours destroyed years of hard work and a neighborhood’s dreams.(33)
There are many different reasons why the City did not spare the Mendez Garden, although none are very convincing. The Mendez Garden was certainly an asset to the community, it provided a much needed open space and cultural resources for a neighborhood under served by such venues. Even though the garden had plentiful political support among elected officials, it had none of the institutional support that existed for Green Oasis. Specifically, Mendez Garden never had a Green Thumb Lease, seen as an important precursor to preservation.(34) The garden’s lot had already been committed to a development project before gardeners began to cultivate it. Many gardeners and activists believe that this prior commitment of the land and the lack of Green Thumb status essentially pre-doomed the garden’s fate.
The fight to preserve the Mendez Garden was a fight to stop the destruction of community gardens to build subsidized housing for the middle class.(35) The garden served as a martyr for the movement. The spirited and well-publicized demonstrations against its destruction brought the preservation issue into the public discourse.(36) The New York Times ran fewer than ten articles on community gardens in 1995 and 1996. While in 1997 and 1998, it ran more than twenty.(37) Garden preservation became a campaign issue in the City’s 1997 elections and may have helped get Margarita Lopez elected to the District 3 City Council seat. Most importantly, while the City has sold four more Lower East Side community gardens, no gardens have been destroyed in the neighborhood since December of 1997. Furthermore no more gardens are up for sale at the City’s next land auction. The New York City Housing Partnership, the agency that sponsored the Del Este Village project, has decided not to pursue any more housing development on the Lower East Side citing the strong activist presence as an obstacle.(38)
Garden supporters are quick to point out in any case of garden demolition that, if the issue is building housing, there are over ten thousand truly vacant lots owned by the City, while there are fewer than 750 community gardens.(39) The destruction of gardens has effects that transcend the clearing of land. If all the human and social benefits spoken of above (opposed to the material improvements of the land or increased real estate values) are created by community gardens, then the destruction of these same gardens serves to undo many of these benefits. If people become empowered through the process of creating a community garden, then they are conversely disempowered by its destruction. Community gardening is a form of self organization that leads to political organization and political power. The gardens themselves provide physical space for groups to meet and the work of community gardening naturally creates groups.(40)
The destruction of the Mendez Garden was about more that a few condominium units. The garden had flourished in spite of the City’s disapproval. The gardeners were getting media attention, taunting, if you will, the powers behind real estate development. The destruction of the garden was a swipe at the collective spirit of the gardeners and community residents that supported the garden. If the creation of the Mendez Garden was, as Jeffery Wright put it, “In your face! Look what we did with what you [the City] left us, the City left us with a rat-hole…and we turned it into one of the most gorgeous gardens in the whole city.�(41) Then the City’s demolition of the garden was to set an example—the City was in control and would dispose with gardens as it saw fit. The fight to preserve the Mendez Garden was drawn in military terms by the gardeners. It was just one battle in the war for open space.
Every movement has its fringe contingent, usually more militant and activist, thus was the Chico Mendez Garden. Green Oasis took a much more diplomatic strategy and navigated the bureaucratic channels towards preservation and succeeded. Its successful preservation was made possible by the radical activism and the martyrdom of the Mendez Garden. The latter’s contribution to the garden movement cannot be over looked. The non-economic motivations for garden destruction cannot be overlooked either. When it comes to garden preservation versus destruction, a garden is not merely judged on its accomplishments. The comparison of the Green Oasis and Mendez Mural Gardens’ bids for preservation highlights the political nature of garden preservation decisions.

1) Anthony Ramirez, “Replowing A Garden, For Housing,� The New York Times 31 August 1997: Sec. 13, p. 7
2) Frederick Law Olmstead, “Public Parks and the Enlightenment of Towns� The City Reader, eds. � Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 341.
3) Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout, introduction to “Public Parks and the Enlightenment of Towns,� p. 335.
Susan Naimark, ed., A Handbook of Community Gardening (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982) p. 9.
4) Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard, “Toward an Urban Design Manifesto� The City Reader, pp. 169-175.
5) Douglas Martin, “A Garden Caught in A Housing Squeeze,� The New York Times 18 May 1998: Sec: B, p. 4. Additional sources include anecdotal information provided by interviews with and presentations by Frank Morales (9 Nov. 1998, Personal Interview 3 Dec. 1998) , Jeffery Wright (6 Nov. 1998), John Shuttleworth (23 Nov. 1998), and Margarita Lopez (30 Nov. 1998).
Anne Raver, “Is This City Big Enough For Gardens and Houses?,� The New York Times 27 March 1997: Sec: C, p. 1.
6) Douglas Martin, “A Garden Caught,� Anne Raver, “Is This City,� and John Shuttleworth
7) Jesse McKinnley, “Adam Purple’s Last Stand,� The New York Times 22 Feb. 1998: Sec: 14, p. 1.
8) Andrea Kannapell, “The Plots and Subplots of a City Garden� The New York Times 28 May 1995: Sec: 13, p. 1.
9) The Green Oasis Community Gardens, Inc. & Gilbert’s Sculpture Garden, self published informational pamphlet. Mathew Perrin, personal interview, 4 Nov. 1998.
10) Elsa Brenner, “Against All Odds, Gardeners Battle to Keep Scarce Space,� The New York Times 8 June 1997: Sec. 13WC, p. 1.
11) Naimark, p. 5
12) Perrin
13) Anne Raver, “Homemade Oases Soften The Harshness of Mean Streets,� The New York Times 2 July 1992: Sec: C, p. 1. And “Garden Notebook; Plot and Subplot on a Village Lot,� The New York Times 30 March 1995: Sec: C, p. 1.
Olmstead, p. 343 “[T]hey should be interesting by a process of planting and decoration, so that in particularly passing through them, whether in going…to or from business, some substantial recreative advantage may be incidentally gained.�
14) Jacobs & Appleyard, p. 169
15) Rafael Torres, Science Teacher, P.S. 19, in a letter to Community Board 3, Feb. 1998.
16) Lester Katz, Prinicipal, P.S. 94, in a letter to Community Board 3, 11 Feb. 1998.
17) Patricia Finn, Teacher, P.S. 61, in a letter to Community Board 3, 9 Feb. 1998
18) Perrin
19) The Green Oasis Community Gardens Informational Pamphlet.
20) Andrew Stone, The Trust For Public Land, in class presentation.
The Green Oasis Community Gardens Informational Pamphlet
21) James R. Kelly, Assistant VP of Systems Professional Development at Merrill Lynch, in letter to Community Board 3.
Perrin, personal interview.
22) Sarah Ferguson, “Green Acres,� The Village Voice 2 July 1996.
23) There are conflicting reports as to the status of Green Oasis’ application for Park’s status. According to Mathew Perrin, it has not been officially approved. Andrew Stone (TPL) is of the understanding that it has. Jeffery Wright also believes that Green Oasis has Parks status. L. A. Kauffman (Personal Interview, 3 Dec. 1998) an open space activist, believes that Green Oasis has Parks status.
24) For a complete treatment of the cross-subsidy plan see Janet Abu-Lughod, “Defending The Cross-Subsidy Plan,� From Urban Village to East Village ed. J. Abu Lughod, (Oxford, UK and Cambridge, USA: Blackwell, 1994) pp. 312-332
Frank Morales, “Multi-Cultural Unity Vs. Garden Demolitions,� Loisida Unity News August 1997: p. 1.
25) Abu-Lughod, p. 314
Jesse McKinley, “Gardens Spared Ax, for Now,� The New York Times 3 August 1997: Sec: 13, p. 7.
26) Jeffery Wright
27) Morales, “Multi-Cultural�.
28) Jeffery Wright, personal interview 6 November 1998.
29) Jeffery Wright and L. A. Kauffman.
30) The summer of 1997, when the Mendez Garden was threatened with demolition, was during the campaign for the Democratic Mayoral nomination and the elections for numerous other local offices. Sal Albanese, Ruth Messinger and Al Sharpton were all vying for the mayor nomination. Margarita Lopez and Tom Duane were running for City Council seats, and Adam Clayton Powell IV was running for Manhattan Borough President.
31) Jane H. Lii, “Bulldozers Flatten Islands of Green,� The New York Times 31 December 1997: Sec: B, p. 3.
32) Jesse McKinley, “Browning of Hope for Village Gardens,� The New York Times 19 October 1997: Sec: 14, p. 6.
33) Lii, “Bulldozers�.
34) Perrin, Wright, Kauffman, Lopez.
35) The Del Este Village condominiums are estimated to cost upwards of $100 thousand dollars and will only be affordable families with incomes ranging from approximately $30 to $70 thousand dollars. (McKinley, “Browning,� and Lii, “Bulldozers.�) The reality, however, is that target demographic is even smaller because a $10 thousand down payment is required. The median household income for the neighborhood is projected to hover around $20 thousand placing the new homes out of the price range for most current residents.
36) Kauffman.
37) ProQuest New York Times Ondisc search.
38) Kauffman
39) McKinley, “Browning,� This figure is attributed to Leslie H. Lowe of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and is frequently cited by garden and housing activists (Kauffman, Perrin, Wright, Ferguson)
40) Morales, personal interview, Kauffman, Perrin.
41) Wright