New York’s Gardens Offer a Place for Community
Script
HOST INTRO:
In 2020, the unexpected covid 19 pandemic forced most of us indoors and secluded from most living things besides a pet or significant other. With the urge to go outside and connect with others hard to resist, the pandemic gave new life to places like community gardens. They’re outdoors making them a safe place to converge, and with a lot of people having the drive to learn new things like gardening, these community gardens became the perfect backdrop for reconnecting socially after the pandemic. Maya Alexander has the story.
TRACK: I visited the 11th street community garden in the east village.
It has attracted members like Connor Davis who became a part of the community two years ago.
ACT: Connor: When I moved I looked out of my apartment window and I saw this beautiful garden and I decided to be a part of it. It wasn’t even a week after I moved I came in and met Al. I think a week later I somehow managed to get myself a key.
TRACK: When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred people turned the garden into a place of solace and community in a time where there was none. It’s even where Connor met his girlfriend Iris who notes the benefits that the garden brought during those times.
ACT: Iris: I think that the garden acted as a nice kind of like refuge place for people during coronavirus since it’s outside.
TRACK: The weeks sequestered indoors brought with it a desire to take care of something.
ACT: Iris: It gave people something to do, um, something to take care of, it was just a nice thing to have.
TRACK: For someone like Al Wax, who helped found the garden 40 years ago, it’s reassuring to see young people like Connor and Iris taking interest in it.
After moving to the East Village in the early 80s, he started the garden after buying a lot where a vacant building once resided.
ACT: Al: Where this garden is used to be a vacant building and back then there used to be a big drug problem in the East Village and the city really didn’t do a whole lot until a couple of bricks fell in the front and because there’s a public school across the street they knocked the whole building down and everybody on the block was watching this and they turned to us a said… If you clear this space out you can have it for a dollar a year.
TRACK: With this deal too enticing to pass up, Al and other members of the community joined together to clear out the lot.
ACT: Al: We were a mixed bag of people who lived on the block, the community and we formed a block association and we cleared out the thing. And I have pictures of kids clearing it out and they come back and this is like forty years later with their kids.
TRACK: Forty years on, the garden is still here and thriving
ACT: Al: And the people who are now in charge, hopefully, they’re gonna stick around and it’s gonna be great.
TRACK: So far this year, the garden has seen an uptick in daily visitors who have been attracted by the increasing number of events the garden has begun to organize like film screenings and live music.
ACT: Al: All of our events so far have been really really incredible… even when they have not many people came for whatever reason… the performers are like unbelievable!
TRACK: So what’s next for the small community garden? The options are limitless, but for now, they plan to take it slow. Encouraging more people to join and become involved seems to be at the top of the to-do list.
ACT: Connor: I think that we’re going to continue growing, get more members and breathe a little bit of life into some of the old and decaying parts of the garden.
TRACK: Community gardens are scattered among the city across all five boroughs. These green spaces remain a sacred part of what little solace New Yorkers have in their day-to-day life. A place like the 11th street community garden is a small reflection of the community and culture that make up the fabric of city living, and these places are going nowhere anytime soon. For Baruch College, I’m Maya Alexander.