Upcoming Events
Thursday, February 15th, 6:30pm - Community Board 10 Land Use Meeting on Mandela Community Garden
Despite the community's dedication to Mandela Community Garden, the mayor has designated it for housing development. Please attend this meeting, be passionate, hold them accountable, question their questionable propositions!
Tuesday, February 20th, 6pm - Peoples Climate Movement Organizing Meeting
The Peoples Climate Movement NY is starting off 2018 with a climate victory! After years of organizing, the Mayor, Public Advocate and Comptroller have agreed to divest NYC pension funds from their $5 billion in fossil fuel. And the Mayor is suing the top 5 fossil fuel corporations for damages to NYC and the planet. Join PCMNY to celebrate and plan for the next climate wins.
On the Radar
Comptroller Again Calls Out City on Vacant Land; City Again Punches Back
"Some of the empty parcels, HPD says, don’t have enough space for a residential building. 'Maybe they’d be a good community garden or something,' Rohlfing said. 'There are definitely lots like that.'”
Gotham Gazette, 2/14/18
Utopic Wellness Communities Are A Multibillion Dollar Real Estate Trend
"GWI also points to Via Verde, a mixed-income community in the South Bronx, New York that incorporates healthy and sustainable features like non-toxic materials to improve indoor air quality, design and aesthetics that encourage walking and stair use, and rooftop community gardens."
Fast Company, 1/24/18
As Nutrition Education Faces Deep Federal Cuts, a New Report Maps Funding
"[Bronx Health's REACH program] has worked to get produce and healthier snacks on shelves at local bodegas; its FoodCorps service members have installed teaching gardens..."
Civil Eats, 1/16/18
Elizabeth Street Garden nonprofit proposes taking over site from city
"The namesake nonprofit managing the garden has released a new set of renderings that aims to show what the garden can look like in the future as a Community Land Trust (CLT)."
Curbed NY, 1/9/18
The NYC Community Land Trust Movement Wants to Go Big
"CLTs offer the promise of community control over land-use decisions during a time when many feel they have been left subject to the whims of real-estate interests that treat land and housing solely as a commodity."
City Limits, 1/8/18
New York Governor Proposes Legislation to End Hunger at all Public State Schools
"[N]early 70 percent of SUNY campuses already have food pantries on site or through community partnerships such as community gardens, emergency food vouchers, dining center meal donations and other programs."
Diverse, 1/4/18
Community News
Activists working for a leafier Forest Hills
"'Apparently the Parks Department doesn’t do community gardens on its own property. It has to be vacant land,' Melnick said. 'But there’s no reason why we can’t plant flowers, so that’s what we’re gonna do.'"
Queens Chronicle, 2/8/18
In Long Island City, your food scraps are turned into compost in an effort to divert waste from landfills
"The city has a 'multi-fold strategy' for diverting organics that began with workshops to teach people how to compost in their homes and community gardens."
QNS, 1/16/18
NYC inaugural ‘cultural impact’ grants partner arts nonprofits with city agencies
"In East New York, Brooklyn, neighborhood nonprofit ARTs East NY is teaming up with the Department of City Planning (DCP) for CivLab, a project to activate an underused public space in Success Garden, a slice of green on Williams Avenue between the Livonia L and Pennsylvania Ave 2/3 trains."
Architect's Newspaper, 1/11/18
New York City Awards New Mayor’s Grant for Cultural Impact to Seven Projects
"CivLab, a project for which ARTs East NY will partner with the NYC Department of City Planning to bring together city planners, local artists, and residents in Success Garden, a community garden in East New York."
Art News, 1/10/18
The Politics of NYC's Urban Farming: The City Notices Urban Agriculture
"On December 11th, 2017, the New York City Council unanimously passed the city’s first-ever urban agriculture policy bill..."
Living Architecture Monitor, 1/5/18
Garden Stories
18 Documentaries That Will Inspire, Outrage and Mobilize
"The film charts a David and Goliath battle as seed libraries, community gardens and a new generation of young farmers come up against the large, corporate chemical companies that now control the majority of the world's seeds."
EcoWatch, 2/8/18
How to Design Cities for Children
"The report offers a myriad of other strategies, from planting community gardens to creating infrastructure that anticipates climate change, like stormwater parks that can be used in both flooded and dry conditions."
CityLab, 2/2/18
Architect amazes with fungi bricks
"The tower decomposed in 60 days, with its bricks turning into soil that was returned to local community gardens and tree planting projects in New York City."
Yale Daily News, 1/19/18
Urban Farming Is the Future of Agriculture
"With the proper technology, farming can go anywhere. That’s what the new trend of urban farming shows — these farms go beyond simple community vegetable gardens to provide food to consumers in surrounding areas."
Futurism, 1/16/18
Bridging the Racial Divide in a Middle School Friendship
"'Green,' the debut novel from Sam Graham-Felsen, who was chief blogger for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, chronicles the middle school travails of an anomalous variety of minority student...Green and his 8-year-old brother, Benno, spend summers helping their parents tend a community garden plot."
NY Times, 1/15/18
