Thanks to all the gardeners who showed their love for their gardens at City Hall today. NYCCGC’s Karen Washington spoke, joined by City Council Speaker Chris Quinn and member Melissa Mark Viverito for joining in. Here are some reports from the press:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/08/04/demonstrators-disapprove-of-proposed-nyc-park-rules/
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/coming-to-the-defense-of-community-gardens/
http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/green-groups-fear-new-community-garden-rules-1.2177610
Carrie McCracken TRUCE Community Garden 
Michelle, Eren, Yoko, and Steve were at the hearing. Steve’s full testimony
statement follows:
Public Hearing Comments August 10, 2002
We dedicate our time to make spaces, where children can see how
Bees and Worms work; with the Sun and Rain, and visible people, to
produce good food and fresh flowers. This important sight; stimulates
the thirst for scientific inquiry: that many schools can’t seem to inspire.
Watching a tide of city-borne children, growing too slothful, and too obese
to hustle for a slice of a shrinking economic pie: should cause one to notice;
children coming here from foreign slums, and mountains , and even deserts: who
out- learn their native-borne classmates at school every day? Isn’t it clear that
core experiences of children, with God’s natural order: embues them with an
extra drive to know things: which then blossoms in the fields of opportunity, our
parents struggled so hard, to achieve here? We need accessible, interactive
green spaces.
How can our parents compete with Disney colored packages of processed food:
If they are not able to give locally produced fresh fruits and vegetables to their
children? We also need neighborhood gardens; where developing youth see
people of different backgrounds; sharing common ground; and working through
differences to create better harvests: year after year. Places that will teach them
to invest their free time in pursuits of peace and incremental progress: instead of
in violent taking, self-abuse, and exploitation.
In this great city; we are told that the learned rule shapers cannot fathom how to
accomplish this end. Yet, there are many examples of gardening allotment systems
in Europe: where our land law traditions derive. Why can’t the City also empower
its constituents; to green their City; with their neighbors: as free citizens?
Haven’t our elected and appointed voted away enough land rights, and Billions
In tax incentives: as give-aways to the real estate elites? Why not, smaller sums,
to endow the common New Yorker?
Most of us; who garden, would agree with James Brown when he sang:
“I don’t want nobody to give me nothin’; just open the door, and I’ll
get it myself.” The HPD properties were abandoned to the detriment of
of all City residents. And we have paid for their upkeep and suffered the blight
of their neglect for years. We are only asking for that portion, proven by our care
to be suitable; to be held in common: FOR USE AS GARDENS: it is our just due.
We are told that this City needs to be “greened”. But instead of making
rules to preserve green spaces: We have beengiven leave to comment on a
prescription; for citizen managed garden spaces to be eliminated: one
by one. Haven’t we seen enough empty, sterile green spaces; borne of well
meaning philanthropy: but lacking , indigenous community involvement?
In ancient Israel; there was a tradition of obligation for the economically
blessed; to provide the poor; without shame or stigma, an opportunity to
glean the fields, after the harvest workers were done. Tell us: where, if not
at our gardens, will the fields be; in ten years; for the less fortunate, of this
City, to glean?
One famed governor of this State; as the last Century began, endowed this
entire Nation with a system of National Parks. They became the conservation
model for the whole world. At this point, we need today’s leaders to do; like,
Theodore Roosevelt, and endow the future children of the City of New York;
with a preserved portion of publicly-held lands: for community agriculture.
Table this bureaucratic rulemaking exercise;instead…
Put a two year moratorium on the dissolution of functioning gardens;
and institute a funded feasibility study to create a permanent system of
community managed gardens.
We; the People, can do more with less: but we can’t do much with nothing.
We deserve more than a promise to move us again and again: until, like the
first Native American gardeners: there is nowhere else, decent, to move us to.
Save all our gardens!!!!
Respectfully submitted:
Steven R. Kidd
144 West 117th Street
New York, New York 10026
Co-contact : Carrie McCracken TRUCE Garden
Board Member: New York City Community Garden Coalition