Urban Community Gardens as Contested Space

Record: 1 Title: Urban community gardens as a contested space. Authors: Schmelzkopf, Karen Source: Geographical Review. Jul95, Vol. 85 Issue 3, p364. 16p. 4 Black and White Photographs, 1 Diagram. Database: Academic Search Complete URBAN COMMUNITY GARDENS AS A CONTESTED SPACE[A] ABSTRACT. This article examines community gardens in Loisaida, a part of the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The area is crime ridden, and most of the residents are poor. The gardens serve social and economic functions such as safe, open spaces for socialization and sources of food. Competition for use of the sites for gardening or housing has emerged as a major problem. Key words: community gardens, housing, Lower East Side, New York City. Community gardening in American cities is not a new idea. The practice has been common in most periods of crisis since the late nineteenth century. It has often been subsidized by local and federal governments, so that residents can produce foodstuffs for themselves. The typical scenario has been for gardens to be established on land that is considered to have little market value. At the end of the crisis, although the problems of the urban poor persist, governments generally withdraw their support and focus instead on profitable real estate development on the former garden plots. With the emergence of the environmental movement in the 1970s and with the availability of open space as a result of unsuccessful urban renewal, community gardens have resurged in many American cities (Breslav 1991). Many of the gardens are in low-income areas and have been hailed as safe havens that provide residents with a sense of nature, community, rootedness, and power. This article focuses on community gardens in Loisaida, an impoverished area in the Lower East Side of New York City (Fig. 1). The community-gardening movement that I am investigating began during the city's fiscal crisis of the 1970s. I assess how the gardens have affected the gardener-residents and the landscape of Loisaida. I examine how the city and federal governments initially supported the gardens at a time when the land was perceived to have little economic value, and I consider how both the economy and attitudes changed during the 1980s and early 1990s. Several of the large gardens have become politically contested spaces, and conflicting community needs have led to a dilemma of whether to develop the land for low-income and market-rate housing or to preserve the gardens. LOISAIDA Loisaida extends from 14th Street south to Houston Street and from Avenue A east past Avenue D (Fig. 1). Loisaida is a Puerto Rican-English word borrowed from the term Lower East Side and is the name for the area traditionally used by Latino residents. However, since the early 1980s gentrifiers, outsiders, and the media have tended to refer to the area as Alphabet City. This varied terminology reflects the diversity of a locality that is shared by several ethnic groups: Anglos, some African-Americans, some Dominicans, some Asians, but especially Puerto Ricans. The majority of residents are poor. According to the 1990 census, the standard of living for 30 percent of the almost 30,000 residents is below the poverty level, with a per capita income of $13,043. Of the remainder, some are working class; some are young artist squatters; and the rest are gentrifiers. Interspersed among the burned-out tenements and other abandoned structures are gentrified buildings, fashionable boutiques, and trendy restaurants, yet an everpresent reality is violent crime, with street stabbings and shootings all too frequent, along with the junkies, crack heads, and drug dealers who run rampant. Loisaida was severely affected by the fiscal crisis that New York City endured during the 1970s. Funds for public services, such as police, fire fighting, sanitation, and recreation, were cut by more than 30 percent. Disinvestment followed, as landlords abandoned properties and as banks and insurance companies withdrew investments. Because of foreclosures resulting from nonpayment of taxes, much of this property reverted to city ownership (Smith, Duncan, and Reid 1989). More than 3,400 units of housing were demolished, and at least 70 percent of the population was displaced (Ferguson 1989). Some of the buildings were destroyed by arson; others were leveled by the city. The vacant lots became open space, a resource for the urban gardeners. COMMUNITY GARDENS IN LOISAIDA The site of what is generally recognized as the first community garden in the Lower East Side was a fenced lot, owned by the city, on the corner of Houston Street and the Bowery, a few blocks west of Loisaida. In 1973 a small group of thirty or so self-described "Peace Corps-types from the post-flower power generation" who later called themselves the Green Guerillas (Fox, Koeppel, and Kellam 1985, 15) threw balloons filled with seeds and bulbs over the fence onto the lot until the group finally received permission from the city to garden. This garden still thrives and is now called the Liz Christy Garden. Other residents were inspired to start their own gardens, and the Green Guerillas incorporated as a notfor-profit organization, with the goal of teaching low-income New Yorkers the art of city gardening (Tietz 1992). Today the flourishing community-gardening movement in Loisaida sustains more than seventyfive gardens. As of spring 1995, thirty-five of the gardens were on property leased from the city; two or more were sites leased from private owners; almost forty were the equivalent of squatters on either private or cityowned land. All of the plots are fenced and locked when the gardeners are absent. The gardens range from very organized and parklike, such as the Urban Botanical Garden (Fig. 2, 36) and the Fireman's Memorial Garden (Fig. 2, 41), to chaotic at best, such as Miracle Garden (Fig. 2, 6) and Sunnyside Garden (Fig. 2, 73); most are between these extremes. The precise character sometimes displays the preferences of the individual gardeners; other times it reflects expectations about the future prospects of a garden. Gardens with long-term leases, as well as El Sol Brillante (Fig. 2, 64), whose gardeners were able to buy the land through the Trust for Public Land, tend to demonstrate the sense of permanency felt by the gardeners, with an abundance of slowgrowing trees, perennials, lawns, and features such as benches, gazebos, and paths made of bricks recycled from the demolished buildings (Fig. 3). But even some squatter gardens, such as the Umbrella Garden (Fig. 2, 8) are well tended, as are some gardens with year-to-year leases, with countless hours of labor invested. None of the gardens, however, can escape its urban setting. The backdrops, what the local gardeners call the borrowed landscape, more often than not are burned-out shells of buildings, graffiti-covered walls, and overcrowded tenements (Roach 1991). Although most gardens contain a mixture of vegetables and flowers, often with bushes and ground cover that thrive throughout the year, five gardens, called plant-a-lot gardens, were designed to be strictly ornamental: Miracle Garden (Fig. 2, 6), All People's Garden (Fig. 2, 14), Parque de Tranquilidad (Fig. 2, 16), Creative Little Garden (Fig. 2, 26), and Fireman's Memorial Garden. They are notable also for the wrought-iron suns that grace the tops of their front gates. Sponsored originally by the Council on the Environment, a privately funded citizens' organization in the Office of the Mayor, the motivation for vegetable-free gardens was twofold. In addition to a desire to create year-round, parklike appearances, there was controversy about whether or not it was safe to grow and eat vegetables because of soil contamination by lead and other heavy metals in the rubble of demolished buildings. Many of the gardens in Loisaida are small--on 15-by-50-foot lots--and a large proportion is associated principally with Latinos. Obtaining information about some of these gardens can be difficult. Many are very transitory, including those in small sections of makeshift parking lots. Some have high weeds in front by the fences to protect the crops from passersby and to provide privacy, so it can be difficult to see what exactly is in back. And some gardeners refuse to speak to outsiders. Nevertheless, available information indicates that these gardens usually are either family oriented or casita [little shack] based. At present there are about ten family-oriented gardens (Fig. 4). Although men are involved in some of these gardens, most are run by women. Even with much of the land devoted to intensive gardening of vegetables and flowers, usually there are various pieces of play equipment, sandboxes, and spaces for children's use. Often makeshift kitchens and washing facilities are present. Almost twenty casita-based gardens, run by men, are located along or near the avenues and usually on unleased land (Fig. 5). The center of the garden is a casita, although in some gardens the structures have evolved into elaborate clubhouses. Some vegetables may be planted, and there always seem to be chickens and a rooster about, but primarily these offshoots of the casitas in the mountains of Puerto Rico are local gathering places, male domains where men drink beer, play dominos, socialize, and sometimes even sleep (Gonzalez 1990). Both family- and casita-based gardens typically have infrastructure, composed of benches, shacks, and the like made from recycled materials. Many of these gardens prominently display Puerto Rican flags, along with statues of the Virgin Mary. Currently, seven large, high-profile gardens are located in Loisaida: El Jardin del Paraiso (Fig. 2, 22); Green Oasis, the garden site for the 1990 movie Green Card (Fig. 2, 43); 6th Street Community Garden (Fig. 2, 29); El Sol Brillante; ABC Garden (Fig. 2, 39), a former homeless "tent" city developed at the request of the Office of the Mayor (Fig. 6); and two corner gardens, 6th Street and Avenue B Garden (Fig. 2, 27) and 9th Street and Avenue C Garden (Fig. 2, 52). Although each of these gardens is unique, as a group they are larger and more elaborate than are other gardens. Excluding these gardens, the average size of a garden in Loisaida is approximately 3,800 square feet. The 6th Street and Avenue B Garden, however, encompasses 16,975 square feet and is noted for its homemade stage and murals, and its huge sculptures are made of recycled materials. Green Oasis, at 16,802 square feet, has a lawn, a large gazebo in the center donated by the producers of Green Card, and elaborate wrought-iron gates donated by the producers of the 1987 movie Batteries Not Included, part of which was filmed across the street (Tietz 1992). The average number of gardeners in the large gardens is between thirty and eighty, and there are more than one hundred gardeners in 6th Street and Avenue B Garden. Interestingly but not surprisingly, these gardens have something else in common: their gardeners come from ethnically diverse backgrounds, but the leadership tends to be well educated, media savvy, and mostly white, though of varied income because of lifestyle choices (Stone 1994). A few gardens, including Sunnyside Garden and Miracle Garden, are worked predominantly by whites; a few, including Gilbert's Sculpture Garden (Fig. 2, 42), All People's Garden, and a squatter garden on 5th Street (Fig. 2, 23) are run by African-Americans. Two gardens are operated by schools: ES. 34 Schoolyard Garden (Fig. 2, 66) and the Earth School Garden (Fig. 2, 28); one is in a public-housing project (Fig. 2, 75); and one is at a church (Fig. 2, 76). One squatter garden (Fig. 2, 33) is part of the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which functions as a recycling site. MAKING THE GARDENS GROW In Loisaida, as elsewhere in New York City, the success of most community gardens requires the combined efforts of resident gardeners, members of not-for-profit technical-support organizations, many of whom are Loisaida gardener-residents, and, in the case of city-leased gardens, city agencies. For the gardeners, most of whom are residents of Loisaida, translating the idea of a garden into reality takes shrewdness and tremendous effort. Nevertheless, the incentive for gardening is compelling: people see how other lots have been wrenched away from drug dealers and, for better or worse, from the homeless. They see lots that have been transformed from junk-laden spaces complete with hypodermic needles, empty crack vials, and rusting appliances into productive places full of color, camaraderie, and safety. Although often only one or two residents take the initiative to start a garden, more than that number usually is needed to transform the space. If the residents want to lease city-owned property, they must organize a block association, petition the city, and take certain requisite workshops. If they want to lease private property, they must negotiate with the owner. If they are going to squat on land, they must physically gain access to the site. Then they must put up a gated fence, sometimes with barbed wire and thorny plants growing on top, depending on how vulnerable or dangerous the location is perceived to be, clear the lot, make raised wooden beds, bring in soil, and then negotiate for gardening supplies. After that they must divide the lots into individual plots, decide on some kind of annual membership dues or other means of covering the costs of the garden, and finally must till, fertilize, plant, weed, harvest, and maintain it. Junkies often steal the gardening supplies, and even if crops are successful, rats from nearby abandoned buildings may eat the produce. Estimates of number of resident gardeners range from 5 to 20 percent of the population (Anderson 1992). However, this information is difficult to verify. Although managers of some of the larger gardens keep detailed records about the number of gardeners and what is grown and although in many of the small gardens everyone is well aware of 'who gardens, at other gardens people are reluctant to give out any information. Furthermore, and especially in the casitas, many people frequent the gardens but do not participate in their upkeep (Santiago 1992). Most of the gardeners are longtime residents of Loisaida, but a few are gentrifiers or recently arrived Dominicans or Asians. A significant number of the gardeners are African-American, but the majority are Latino or white. Females account for at least 70 percent of the gardeners (Weissman 1992). Some gardeners are employed on weekdays and participate in the local activities only on weekends. Many gardeners related that they are retired, unemployed, or nonworking. Often gardening is their only productive activity, and they devote long hours to it, even in winter as weather permits. Residents of Loisaida garden for various reasons. Some persons are interested only in growing food and consider the garden an economic resource. For most individuals the food is an important benefit, but they became involved initially to have a safe outdoor place as an option to their crowded one- or two-room apartments and unheated "squats" with no running water or electricity. They love to garden, and they want to improve the neighborhood by ridding it of drug dealers and by bringing some nature into the area. Over and over gardeners told of how gardening and socializing in the gardens make them feel as though they are a part of the community and a part of the land, even in the midst of the dirty, crimeridden streets of Loisaida. A nonnegotiable rule of most of the gardens is that no drugs are allowed, which keeps the drug dealers away and some gardeners away from drugs. Many individuals said that if they or their children were not in the gardens, they would be out getting high. In overcoming the challenges of creating and sustaining the gardens, the gardeners develop a common goal and have immediate contact with each other, and through their work in the garden--manipulating the soil and being concerned about frosts and rainfall--they also have an immediate contact with the physical environment. Why the unusually high percentage of female gardeners? Many girls and women explain that a garden is a place where they can feel safe yet still be outside with other people. A garden offers security and opportunity for women who are restricted by lack of money, the dangers of the street, and responsibilities for children. According to the 1990 census, 13 percent of all Loisaida households with children are headed by women, and of those households, 53 percent are below the poverty level. Of those with children under the age of five, 67 percent live below the poverty level. For these women, the gardens provide valuable foodstuff and activity space. They can tend to their children, talk to other people, and do many domestic chores such as cooking, mending, dining, and even washing clothes. Mothers, some of whom are in their early teens, find a garden good for their offspring: a place to play and the only site in Loisaida where they can be around nature, where they can watch and make things grow. Gardening, to some extent, shields them from the social ills of the street, such as drugs, prostitution, and guns. Men of the casita-based gardens articulate their own personal benefits. The casita is a place where they can relax, where they can re-create a lifestyle similar to that in Puerto Rico, and where they do not have to answer to anyone else. Some of these men have no place else to go. They have become estranged from their families, and in the casitas they at least are able to remain a part of the community. NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS For community activism to occur, local residents must be organized. The first task is for them to recognize that they share problems or goals. Then they often need to learn methods for attaining their goals (Davis 1991). Although research has shown that organizers in poor neighborhoods tend to be middle class and to come from outside the community (Crenson 1983), in Loisaida the situation is somewhat atypical and perhaps more egalitarian. The main supporters of the gardens are the Green Guerillas, who had their beginnings as resident gardeners in the Lower East Side. Although they have become an established organization, with an administration and paid employees, their structure and membership strongly reflect their origins. Very early the membership decided that the organization itself would stop doing any actual gardening. The agenda has become one of facilitating self-sufficient gardens by teaching gardeners technical and organizational skills, both horticultural and political, and by supplying them with free garden materials that the Green Guerillas obtain by determinedly seeking donations from anybody who may have surplus supplies or money. The criterion for receiving this aid is that it must be requested by the gardeners, and the gardens must be on publicly accessible sites. The group does not discriminate between leased and squatter gardens (Roach 1991; Tietz 1992; Elman 1994). Other nonprofit agencies that are or have been active include the Council on the Environment; the Trust for Public Land, a nationwide land-conservation organization; the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, a source of inexpensive insurance to protect the gardens against injury, vandalism, and theft; and Cornell University Extension, which provides free soil testing and instructions for planting specific crops and vines to shield the gardens from the noise and pollution of vehicular traffic. An important agenda for most of these organizations is to preserve and maintain open space in the city. They perceive community gardens as especially beneficial to this goal. CITY INVOLVEMENT New York City became involved in urban gardening in 1976, when the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), at a cost of $3.6 million, designed and built gardens throughout the city as an interim use for vacant land awaiting construction. Although no tools or technical assistance were provided to neighborhood residents, HPD intended that they maintain these gardens. But the gardens were vandalized and abandoned in short order. Residents asserted that the primary reason for their destruction was that the city failed to consult or include them in the design and building of these gardens, which meant that the people responsible for them had no proprietary interest in the sites (Fox, Koeppel, and Kellam 1985). In 1978, recognizing the success of grass-roots neighborhood-revitalization programs and responding to the growing number of requests for leases by people who wanted to garden on the recently abandoned property, the city created Operation Green Thumb (OGT), a program dedicated to supporting gardeners rather than to building gardens. OGT is one of the few, and by far the largest, city-run gardening programs in the United States, with federal funding from community-development block grants. In addition to leasing vacant property to gardeners at the minimal rate of $1 a month, OGT sponsors workshops to teach horticulture, garden design, and maintenance, and it dispenses some soil, plants, seeds, bulbs, tools, and other gardening materials (Weissman 1992). To obtain a lease, potential gardeners must form a block association and petition for the site. Sites are available on one-year leases only if no development is scheduled in the near future. For ten-year leases, the land must also be assessed at a value of less than $55,000 (in 1994 dollars). If a lease is given, initially it is for one year. As long as no development is scheduled and the gardeners are able to maintain the garden according to basic OGT guidelines, then it is possible to obtain long-term leases of five to ten years (Weissman 1995). Currently, OGT leases more than 1,000 lots throughout New York City. They contain some 650 community gardens that produce more than $1 million in fruits and vegetables each year (Weissman 1994). With respect to gardens on unleased land, the city does not support them, but OGT will help squatters obtain a lease if possible and if they desire one. Otherwise, the city tends to leave squatters alone. In contrast to city-developed parks, gardens are a bargain because they are labor intensive, and community labor represents 80 percent of the investment in a project (Weissman 1992). Also, the surrounding locales gain some socially generated equity from the gardens because open space is maintained and because a lot with a garden on it is much more pleasant than is one filled with garbage and weeds. And there is anecdotal evidence of increased stability on the street, with more people around and increased neighborhood friendliness making the vicinity relatively safer than blocks with no gardens. Finally, the physical environment accrues certain benefits. Plants and trees filter pollutants from the air, act as buffers against the wind, add oxygen to the air, reduce temperatures by as much as 5degrees or 6degrees C in the summer, control noise, reduce rainfall runoff, and attract birds and other wildlife. They provide sites for recycling organic matter into mulch or soil (Spirn 1984). PROBLEMS Gardens may also be both a source and a focus of tensions. Conflicting advice, negotiating for garden materials, and the pitting of one nonprofit group against another can cause friction. Gardeners and notfor-profit organizations note that about 90 percent of the members of the Green Guerillas and OGT are white. Although the gardeners rarely fit the profile of the young urban professional and although many are resident gardeners in Loisaida or other parts of the city, racial and class differences can be an issue. To offset resentments, OGT and the not-for-profit organizations continue to promote self-determination on the part of the gardeners in terms of administration, everyday decision making, and the actual creation of the gardens. One major consequence is that OGT gardeners tend to be much more selfreliant and less dependent on city resources than are community gardeners in other cities (Stone 1992). Public access to some gardens can be a source of contention for nongardening members of the community. Although many of the squatter casita gardeners make no pretense of being anything other than an exclusive group, OGT gardens and any garden that receives support from the Green Guerillas must have a publicly accessible entrance and must be open to the public at least once a week, with hours posted on the front gate. Legal access, however, does not necessarily mean that the sites are in fact public spaces or that everyone is welcomed or comfortable in all of the gardens even during open hours. Because of the fences, locks, posted hours, and lists of rules and regulations on some of the garden gates, as well as an often close-knit interaction among some gardeners, confusion can arise in the neighborhood as to whether the gardens are in fact private. Some gardeners insist that these are protective devices used solely to keep junkies and criminals out of the gardens. Others acknowledge some exclusionary tendencies but feel justified because they have worked so hard in the gardens. Gardeners often complain about interactions in some of the gardens, which they call garden politics. The practice includes anything from the not-uncommon power struggles and backbiting of any organization or family structure, to disturbing conflicts about different ethnic and gender backgrounds-who should grow what, why certain behaviors are preferred over others, who belongs, and who does not. When a garden is well established and the excitement of facing the challenges and crises of building it ends, a familiar scenario often plays out: interest and involvement in anything other than actual gardening or socializing gradually slacken, and much of the maintenance and organizational work becomes the responsibility of one or more core persons. In some instances gardeners contend that a few strong-willed individuals take control of what is supposed to be a community place and in effect turn it into a private club (Breslav 1992; Kannapell 1995). When such internal skirmishes result in a disorganization of the political structure of the gardening association, it has in some instances led to a deterioration of the physical structure of the garden (Anderson 1992). GARDENS AND DEVELOPMENT The issue of garden politics assumes greater significance when the city uses it as one justification for its reluctance in giving out long-term leases or in allowing gardeners to buy the land through a land trust with the Trust for Public Land. The concern, the city asserts, is over what will happen if the gardens are not maintained after a long-term lease of five or ten years or more is approved or if the site is purchased. The position of the gardeners and nonprofit organizations is to give the gardeners a chance; the worst that could happen is that the land would revert to the city if the gardens are abandoned or not maintained (Elman 1992; Stone 1992). Behind the reticence of the city is a concern that has decimated other urban garden movements-development. During the early 1970s the gardens were hailed by the city as a productive use of land considered to be relatively worthless, but the early 1980s brought gentrification to the Lower East Side. An emerging art scene of the late 1970s that diffused from the increasingly overpriced, nearby Soho preceded gentrification. Attracted by low rents, artists discovered cheap housing and new spaces for storefront galleries and performance clubs (Deutsche and Ryan 1984). Then came the middle-class gentrifiers, who displaced the artist movement (Bowler and McBurney 1991, 52). Some tenements were converted into high-priced condominiums, and the city began making plans to sell many buildings and lots it had acquired through tax foreclosures to developers of market-rate housing (De Giovanni 1987). The same attributes--such as access to light and a central location--that make parcels of land prime locations for gardens also make them attractive to developers (Inglis 1992). In 1984 the city put a moratorium on leasing any more land for gardens, which in turn led to a proliferation of squatter gardens, and four or five gardens were bulldozed to make way for parking structures, high-priced condominiums, and apartment buildings (Weissman 1992). But as the gardeners and the Green Guerillas were preparing to fight for the gardens, another issue emerged and complicated matters: the desperate need for low-income housing. Low-income housing-advocacy groups such as the Joint Planning Council (JPC) and Community Board 3 (CB3), which are neighborhood political groups with advisory power over planning and services, argued that if the city was going to encourage gentrification, it should also have a strategy for preserving the Lower East Side for the "ethnically diverse lower income residents who had characterized the neighborhood since the mid-1800s." In 1987, after several years of struggle, HPD agreed to a crosssubsidy plan that called for 1,000 units of housing to be built at market rate and 1,000 units to be built or rehabilitated for low-to-moderate-income housing, with the sale of the land for market-rate housing paying for the latter (Community Board 3 1989, 2). Not surprisingly, some of the desired sites contain large community gardens. In any diverse neighborhood, there will be frictions of interests and goals among various groups. This circumstance is exemplified in Loisaida by the gardeners and the housing advocates. Both groups recognize the benefits of the gardens and the need for open space, but the position of both the CB3 and the JPC is that low-income housing has first priority. The situation is further complicated by the fact that many of the people who are active in the housing-advocacy groups are also gardeners or participate in the not-for-profit garden groups. It becomes especially emotional because many gardeners are desperately in need of low-income housing. Val Orselli, head of a housing-advocacy group, articulated a common view when he stated that "at times, gardeners have lost the original vision, that they were there to beautify a neighborhood that needed beauty for lack of housing" (Rowe 1989, 13). Nevertheless, gardening advocates maintain that the gardens do much more than beautify and that public open space is vital to life in the city (Elman 1994). In response to the cross-subsidy plan, the Green Guerillas formed the Lower East Side Garden Preservation Project. Its purpose was to find a position that would not pit gardens against low-income housing. With the help of an architectural consultant, the group devised a plan with enough suitable open space for construction of 2,000 housing units without using any of the garden sites (Green Guerillas 1990; Elman 1992). The situation changed yet again in the late 1980s, when the realities of national and regional economic recession led to a slump in the real estate market. Interest in purchasing market-rate housing declined, especially in Loisaida, where the gentrification process never became firmly established (Lueck 1989). As a result, the market price for dwellings dropped substantially, and the whole idea of a cross-subsidy, which is to use profits from the sale of the market-rate housing to pay for low-income housing, became unrealistic. Faced with a severe need for low-income housing, HPD did complete the first phase of the crosssubsidy program. Instead of waiting for reimbursement from the sale of market-rate housing, HPD took money from capital funds to rehabilitate more than 750 low-income units (New York City 1991). With the economy still in a slump, the city issued a few short-term leases for new gardens, including the ABC Garden, specifically as interim measures until the sites are to be developed. In 1992 I-IPD decided that CB3 and the Lower East Side Garden Coalition, a political group organized to save the gardens, should make up what amounted to a triage inventory of gardens to designate the ones that absolutely should be saved and those that were less viable (Bhatnagar 1993). Both CB3 and the coalition objected and preferred to make the decision on a case-by-case basis (Anderson 1992). In February 1993, HPD took matters into its own hands and issued a list of 22 sites it intended to put up for sale. Six of the largest gardens, including 6th Street and Avenue B Garden, Green Oasis, ABC Garden, and 9th Street and Avenue C Garden, were on the list (Elman 1993; Jakobsen 1993). Some lots were earmarked for market-rate housing, but others, including the 9th Street and Avenue C Garden and ABC Garden, were designated for low-income or senior-citizen housing. The lease for ABC Garden was not renewed in 1995, although the gardeners continue there. CB3 voted to support the HPD plan but asked that the garden lots be sold last. HPD does not, however, need the approval of CB3 to proceed with the land sale. Because HPD wants to recoup the money it expended on low-income housing in the early 1990s and because the gardens are on the largest and most valuable sites, these community gardens may not survive for much longer. CONCLUSION Community gardens are an essential part of Loisaida as a place. They transcend the separation between the public and the private: they are part of the public domain and are the sites of many functions conventionally equated with the private sphere. Domestic activities, nurturing, and a sense of home are explicitly brought outside into the gardens. The gardens help people feed themselves and foster a healthier physical and social environment. They provide places for children and adults to work and play and learn about nature, and they are sanctuaries away from the dangers, stresses, and temptations of the street. The community-gardening movement now exists in a city where the budgets of social services and recreation have been slashed and where there is a call for self-help in the form of volunteerism and community action. Community gardens on public space are one response to this call. The gardens cost the city virtually nothing, and the positive effects of the gardens are quite visible on the landscape and in the lives of the residents and gardeners. Juxtaposed against these circumstances is the need for low-income housing in a financially strained city with numerous demands on scarce resources. Currently, most of the small gardens are not threatened, and many of the garden activists appreciate the need for housing and acknowledge the potential real estate value of the larger gardens. However, they also feel that, as illustrated by the Lower East Side Garden Preservation Project, there are other options and justifiable reasons to save the larger gardens. Among these reasons are the sizable proportion of Loisaida gardeners who garden there and the social, economic, and physical benefits derived by them; the investment of labor and the elaborate infrastructure that has evolved over time; and the positive effect the gardens have on the surrounding neighborhood. Community gardens exist in other sections of New York City and in cities throughout the United States. They share the common experience of carving out contested spaces in the large structures of economic and political power At issue are important questions about who has the right of access to space and nature and what price society is willing to pay to maintain the spaces. However, the benefits are difficult to quantify, and until persuasive arguments are made for the right to open space and nature, these spaces will continue to be treated as expendable, nonessential privileges. For the present the urban gardeners of Loisaida, with some help from their friends, will have to be content with producing vital, if sometimes temporary, plots of nature and community within the decayed geography of the surrounding urban space. a I thank Peter Gould, Daniel Baker, and Loretta Sokoler for their assistance with early drafts of this article and Jackie Cruz Medici and Brooke Nappi for their help with the interviews. In particular, I thank John Everitt; part of the credit for this article belongs to him. MAP: FIG. 1--Lower Manhattan. DIAGRAM: FIG. 2--Community gardens in Loisaida, spring 1995. PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIG. 3--El Sol Brillante is owned by the gardeners through the Trust for Public Land. This is a small portion of the much-larger garden. The fence plots belong to individual gardeners. The concrete piece in the foreground is now used as a planter. (Photograph by author) PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIG. 4--Brisas del Caribe (Fig. 2, 12) contains a decorative garden with a scarecrow and, to the left, plots for growing vegetables. This is a family garden with about 15 gardeners. The white picket fence in the foreground is ornamental; near the small building visible in the background are children's play things. (Photograph by author) PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIG. 5--This casita garden has more gardening (on the left) than is usually the case in this type of garden. The accumulated objects on the right include a functioning vendor cart that is stored here. The casita is far more active on weekends and in the evening than it appears in this daytime shot. (Photograph by author) PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): FIG. 6--The ABC Garden, on the site of a former tent compound for the homeless, contains mainly vegetables and flowers, with some bushes and trees but little infrastructure. The gardeners are still active, although the site no longer has an OGT lease. (Photograph by author) CITATIONS Bowler, A., and McBurney, B. 1991. Gentrification and the avant-garde in New York City's East Village. Theory, Culture, and Society 8:49-77. Breslav, M. 1991. The common ground of green words: one author's search for a definition of community greening. Community Greening Review 1:4-9. -----. 1992. Is a garden forever? Community Greening Review 2:4-9. Community Board 3 Manhattan. 1989. Mutual housing association proposal. June. Crenson, M. 1983. Neighborhood politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Davis, J. 1991. Contested ground: collective activism and the urban neighborhood. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. De Giovanni, E 1987. Displacement pressures in the Lower East Side. New York: Community Services Society of New York. Deutsche, R., and Ryan, C. 1984. The fine art of gentrification. October 24:91-111. Ferguson, S. 1989. Occupied territories: inside the squatters movement. Village Voice 18 July:22-32. Fox, T., I. Koeppel, and S. Kellam. 1985. Struggle for space: the greening of New York City, 1970-1984. New York: Neighborhood Open Space Coalition. Gonzalez, D. 1990. Las casitas: oases or illegal shacks? New York Times 20 September Green Guerillas. 1990. Lower East Side community gardens. August, New York City. Inglis, S. 1992. Tiller of city soil. House Beautiful May:35-38. Jakobsen, L. 1993. House and garden. Downtown Resident 26 February:7. Kannapell, A. 1995. The plots and subplots of a city garden. New York Times 28 May. Lueck, T. 1989. The future is uncertain in areas that bloomed too late in the 1980s. New York Times 29 September. New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. 1991. Lower East Side vacant land use inventory. 14 February. Roach, M. 1991. The green guerillas. New York Newsday 3 September. Rowe, J. 1989. City gardens sow controversy. Christian Science Monitor 10 July. Smith, N., B. Duncan, and L. Reid. 1989. From disinvestment to reinvestment: tax arrears and turning points in the East Village. Housing 4:238-252. Spirn, A. 1984. The granite garden. New York: Basic Books. INTERVIEWS Anderson, S. (director, Lower East Side Garden Coalition; member, Community Board 3), October and November 1992. Bhatnagar, J. (associate director, New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development), April 1993. Elman, L. (associate director, Green Guerillas), October and November 1992; March and April 1993; May and June 1994. Santiago, N. (community gardener; member, Lower East Side Garden Coalition), November 1992. Stone, A. (associate director, Trust for Public Land), November 1992; July 1994; June 1995. Tietz, P. (associate director, Green Guerillas), October 1992. Weissman, J. (director, Operation Green Thumb), November 1992; May and July 1994; June 1995. ~~~~~~~~ By KAREN SCHMELZKOPF DR. SCHMELZKOPF is a visiting assistant professor of geography at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey 07764-1898. Copyright of Geographical Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.