COMMUNITY GARDEN

The half acre currently occupied by the community garden examined here has had a long history as an abandoned lot and site of criminal activity. In 1998, a local branch of a national charitable organization acquired the lease for the site and erected a fence around it, with plans to turn it into a park. In 2006, with the space still not much more than a fenced-in lot, a small group of anarchist-leaning activists took over and began a community garden. Within a year, dozens of people joined the garden, working on inpidual plots along curving paved walkways and sharing green com- mon areas. Membership grew rapidly, fueled by advertisements placed in local organic stores, a community-supported agriculture group, and online—and by pass- ersby noticing the changes on the lot. In 2009, the gardeners fought against an effort to reclaim the garden as a more traditional park, led by the residents’ association in public housing across the street and the nonprofit organization that originally held the lease. Relying on claims of safety (e.g., that a traditional park would encourage

drug dealing) and demonstrating that local residents had access to the garden and its common areas, gardeners were able to stave off an imminent takeover.

At the time of research, the land was owned by the city, and the space was under the Parks Department umbrella as an official community garden, governed   by city rules under a lease renewed every 4 years. Over 200 people were on the wait- ing list to get a plot. Immediate neighbors of the garden continued to be pided in their opinion of the garden. Some neighbors said that white people in the garden were giving away plots to each other at the expense of black and brown people. Although open hours were posted on the gate alongside a Parks Department sign, some people, particularly new immigrants, did not realize that they were allowed inside, which is a common issue in accessing New York’s community gardens. Meanwhile, more affluent residents of the new apartment buildings were either excited about the opportunity to engage in trendy urban gardening or avoided local public spaces altogether, considering them dangerous.

During fieldwork, there were over 200 members of the garden, most attached to over a hundred inpidual plots approximately 100 square feet in size. Some plots were tended by single inpiduals, and others by several people connected by kinship or friendship. About a fifth of the members were public housing residents from the devel- opment across the street. Two years after the garden was founded, a group of garden- ers established a community plot, which was meant to provide an opportunity to garden for those on the waiting list or interested in casual involvement, and to experi- ment with agricultural techniques. The community plot is comprised of about a dozen raised beds of various sizes in the center of the garden, and is tended cooperatively by a team of five to six core gardeners and a variable number of drop-in gardeners.

According to the garden’s rules, all members have to live or work in the area. Many members were immigrants, with an estimated 40 languages spoken in the gar- den. There were also many white, native-born professionals who were not originally from New York. The garden is wheelchair accessible, and there were a number of disabled gardeners. Gardeners were of all ages, including a few teenagers, as well as the elderly. Many came with young children and grandchildren. The garden is also  a public space visited by people who are not members. City rules mandate 20 hours per week of open access to the public during the warm season; in reality, the garden gate is unlocked more than that. Local residents, primarily immigrants and people  of color, stroll through the garden and spend time in its shared areas. Occasionally, visitors to a nearby sculpture park and museum walk over to take pictures of the garden and the murals surrounding it. While the garden is a public space in that it is at least technically accessible to the public, the patterns of social relations within it are often, but not always, of a parochial nature, defined by Lofland (1998:10) as being characterized by “a sense of commonality among acquaintances and neigh- bors who are involved in interpersonal networks that are located within communities.”