Community gardens in New York City
The community garden movement in NYC began in the Lower East Side during the disrepair of the 1960s on vacant, unused land.
By the end of the first season, the program was deemed a success growing $11,000 worth of produce with a clear profit margin for farmers.
[2] In 1898, the AICP published a report about the gardening program as an ideal solution to unemployment and listed similar projects in nineteen cities.
In DeWitt Clinton Park, Parsons created a large educational garden in the 1902[3][1] as a way to "show how willing and anxious children are to work, and to teach them in their work some necessary civic virtues; private care of public property, economy, honesty, application concentration, self-government, civic pride, justice, the dignity of labor, and the love of nature by opening to their minds the little we know of her mysteries, more wonderful than any fairy tale.
[4] In 1962, one of the first gardens, El Jardín del Paraíso, was formed by Puerto Rican residents in the Lower East Side.
[4] In 1994, Mayor Rudy Giuliani was inducted after running on a platform of fighting crime, reducing homelessness, and privatizing public land and services.
[4][5] In January 1999, 114 gardens were put up for public auction without input from the community usually provided by the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP).
There were no use restrictions placed on these lots and local coalitions were formed in opposition staging demonstrations, participating in political events, utilizing formal approaches such as lawsuits, and built networks.
[13] Attorney General Eliot Spitzer also opposed the administration by recommending state environmental review or an act of the Legislature needed to happen before the sale of community gardens.
to sell lots to developers for $1 was not made publicly and gardeners found out about the initiative through 596 Acres, a non-profit who maps open city land and advocates for community uses.
[18] With-in New York City, there is a range of types of community gardens from those that designate plots, which results in a "patchwork of private property" to those that communally manage the growing operation and decision making.
[21] New York City community gardens have also been shown to reduce storm water runoff due to pervious surfaces as well as raised beds and compost soil amendments.
[22] Finally, community gardens in the Bronx and East Harlem were found to harbor over 50 bee species,[23] providing pollination for locally grown crops.
[24] GreenThumb is the program administered by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation which provides resources and coordinates leases for city-owned vacant land.
The license agreement includes posting signage, maintaining open hours, active membership, and the garden space; host public events; and assume risk.
[28] New York Restoration Project (NYRP) was founded in 1995 by Bette Midler when the organization transformed a vacant lot into Highbridge Park in Upper Manhattan.
