The past few weeks have been busy. I've getting used to my new camera, the Leica D-Lux 2. I have been looking for the perfect blogging camera; this may be it.
I had it in my pocket this past weekend when I passed the M’finda Kalunga garden, named after an African burial ground, on the Lower East Side.
The volunteers that morning were all huddled around park benches discussing their plants and the latest news while sharing food. Children were also busy – young Ulysses was helping his father, Eric, tend to the mulch and topsoil piles. He is a master of dirt.
For many years this area had been overrun with drugs and crime. Most locals had no safe haven. It was the work of concerned community members who cleaned up the park and started what is now a true urban oasis. People can easily tell it is a park full of care. While I was there a woman ran in seeking help with a wounded bird. Within minutes everyone had worked to take care of the little guy.
Glancing up from the benches, you can feel the new construction and luxury apartments towering over the park. The very members who worked to create a safe haven can barely afford to stay in the neighborhood that they worked hard to clean up.
One of the founders of the park who was gardening that day mentioned that he had just moved due to the rising cost of living in that area. He still comes to work here on the weekends and works to bring in more community organizations to enrich the park, including a local school for the blind, in order to keep the park a community effort that is welcoming to all.
I truly hope their park can continue to be an all-inclusive space and nurture the goodwill it currently harbors. It is a very special garden.
- Matt N.
The very act of making the area more beautiful for themselves, their families, is what drew others to the area. My guess.
The difference in the people that were moving in when this street was overrun with illegal dumping, people living in their old RVs, vans, trucks, or the bushes, as well as the low-end commercial vehicles parking for extended periods of time...and the people that are coming now is a big change.
I worked the phone and email like crazy, as did the tenants association and the apartment management, to clean up the area.
New crosswalk signs put in, thanks to my pestering the sign shop. New legislation had to be passed, just to make it illegal to park on one side of the street and no overnight parking on the other side.
While it was illegal to live in vehicles or park commercial vehicles overnight, the laws were too hard to enforce. What was needed, and I alone rallied for it, were easily enforceable laws.
Once the campers and commercial vehicles were gone, the dumpers had no place to hide to dump and that was another eyesore reduction. Even crime went up when the street was a mess and has gone down with the street looking better.
And I alone am often the one who pulls auto parts out of the bushes, and calls in to report suspicious vehicles or abandoned autos or signs that have been knocked down.
It's a benefit for the entire neighborhood. Reclaiming the neighborhood from people who would abuse it makes it safer and lovely. Except property values go up.
Now, if I was booted from this place and all the people who made that garden what it is had to move, who would take up the slack? Who would care enough to do it? Would the new tenants around that park be completely puzzled? "Gosh, when we moved in, the park was so beautiful and now it's fallen into disrepair and a crime-ridden area."
Maybe the old timers there, the ones that brought the garden along could invite the new people to the garden. Maybe someone has pictures of how it used to be. Maybe they could continue to build upon the garden together. And pass the torch, if need be.
Because, from what little I've seen in my life, there's always a new space that's just waiting for tender loving care. A new street, a new pocket of earth hoping someone will come along to make a difference.
By the way, there must be a story to go with the concrete mosaic people. They are great!
and I end with my favorite quote:
Example isn't the main thing influencing others, it is the only thing.
-Albert Schweitzer
At our Senior apartmenthouse, we live on a land fill. We decied to put in a garden, and when we dug up the area we found some of the strangist things, so we covered our garden area with plastic sheeting, and put top soil on top to create our garden. Now we have corn growing, and lettuce, cabblage, green peppers, collard greens, carrots, and two old growth trees astand of Redwoods. They wanted to cut them down, I stood my gfround, I huged the trees and said they had to stay.
This great what you are doing in New York, I was commenting about what we were doing in Fallbrook, CA, I am sorry I did not check my spelling. Apartment Therapy can be tried any palce. It makes for a better community.
Wonderful Annaelizabeth! It's so good to know that there ARE people out there that DO care. I'm going to try to find an article I read, and I have no idea if it was online or in a magazine. It had to do with a back access area to many apartments, with the stairways. And it started with just one person. Eventually they formed a "group" and the main plant person picks out the plants, everyone pitches in with money, and they all get to enjoy a lovely courtyard, covered in flowers and vines.
What a great way to meet the neighbors, know who lives where, and keep an eye on each other's home and safety. It's beautiful, of course, which makes EVERYONE feel better about where they live. And that all their neighbors care about how it looks. Even those without a green thumb can benefit from a collective, as they still contribute money to the ongoing garden effort.
Having the area accessible to everyone, means that a few people can take care of the plants. I think it's wonderful.
I'm originally from a small town, so it's this kind of small town feeling that I enjoy the most.
Could that group of people have been in Chicago? I remember reading about urban renewal there--can't remember the context, however.
It looks like it is a very beautiful park. I liked pictures # 20 & 26