Museum as Hub

Hub Notes: NYC Community Gardens, 1/15/08

In a conversation sparked by Sangdon Kim’s video, Discoplan* [which shows footage of collective efforts to re-seed the land of a contaminated military base], a visitor to the Hub told me about her involvement in community efforts to save Lower East Side neighborhood gardens. The gardens have been cultivated in vacant city lots since the mid-1960s and have faced repeated threats by municipal bulldozers itching to sell the land for new development. The gardens (many of which are located in and around the Lower East Side) are vibrant contributions to the life of the neighborhood. The visitor directed me to several organizations dedicated to their preservation— see links below for more information:

New York City Garden Preservation Coalition:
http://www.earthcelebrations.com/gardens/gardens.html

Green Guerillas, a nonprofit organization helping grassroots groups in New York City establish and maintain community gardens.
http://www.greenguerillas.org

Timeline of NYC’s community gardens:
http://www.notbored.org/gardens.html

Lower East Side Ecology Center Website:
http://www.lesecologycenter.org/index.html

-Sabrina Locks

*Discoplan was presented by Insa Art Space as part of the introduction to the Museum as Hub project, December 1, 2007-February 24, 2008. “Dongducheon: A Walk to Remember, A Walk to Envision” — the second installment of the project will take place in the Museum as Hub starting May 4, 2008.