Rally for the Gardens.

Posted on October 24, 2024 by admin

We are standing up to protect our gardens on Monday, October 28 at noon on the steps of City Hall. Please come if you can. We need to be LOUD!LUNGS is coordinating a City-Wide rally with Green Guerillas, the New York Community Garden Coalition and the Elizabeth Street Garden.We are alarmed by the actions and intentions of the City administration in regard to our gardens.Our rally is in response to Mayor Eric Adams’ executive order 43 of August 21 requiring all city agencies to review their city owned and controlled land for potential housing development sites and in response to the Eviction Notice that Elizabeth Street Garden received on October 2. Our community gardens are an integral to the health and well being of our neighborhoods. They are the glue that strengthens our community by bringing people together and providing a healthy, educational, active environment.In the 1960s and 1970s New York City abandoned low income communities. Buildings were allowed to burn, entire neighborhoods became moonscapes. But people, on their own, volunteering their time, converted the urban blight into community gardens. Creating a community garden is an act of self-determination. In marginalized communities, gardeners challenge one of the most dehumanizing consequences of poverty and unemployment — severely limited resources. In community gardens people experience a sense of liberation and empowerment. And, as community gardeners, we demand respect. Since 1978, community gardeners and the Department of Parks and Recreation’s GreenThumb Program have enjoyed a fruitful relationship. Gardeners voluntarily give their time, labor, and money to be stewards of the City’s property and natural resources while GreenThumb has provided much needed organizational support. Yet in 1996 a city-wide struggle ensued when then-Mayor Guiliani tried to sell hundreds of community gardens to developers. Now we fear history is about to repeat itself. In a comment on the Mayor’s E.O. 43, Sue Donoghue, Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, said: Adams’ “new executive order is an important step in addressing New York City’s affordable housing crisis. This effort ensures that we can carefully balance the need for housing with the thoughtful use of the valuable facilities under NYC Parks’ jurisdiction.”  Community gardens signed a ten year license agreement with the city in 2022 but the wording imposed by the city states “ this License is terminable at will by the Commissioner in his or her discretion at any time, upon sixty (60) days written notice, and Licensee shall have no recourse of any nature whatsoever by reason of such termination.” We are the biggest community garden program in the country — and yet we are not safe. We seek a permanent solution to the preservation of community gardens in New York City. For eleven years The Elizabeth Street Garden has been trying to reach an agreement with the city government to insure its continued existence. The city has ignored over a million letters sent to the Mayor’s administration calling for the protection of Elizabeth Street Garden. Pragmatic alternative locations to the proposed housing have been offered, but the City remains intransigent. The past tells us we have to be proactive. We cannot sit back and watch as our gardens are listed as available for development and Elizabeth Street Garden is destroyed. We’ve got to make some noise. We demand that no community gardens be placed on a list of city properties for potential development and that Elizabeth Street Garden be preserved. This is our ongoing struggle, please join us.