Powerful Plots: Attention Grabbing Gardens in the City
Hi all. I’m new to the blog. My name is Alex and I am the Internship Coordinator for the Institute. I am also a graduate student in Urban Planning at Hunter College studying food systems and food security. I look forward to blogging about all things urban-ag related for your reading pleasure in the coming months.
Last week I had the opportunity to attend a panel talk on urban agriculture and sustainable food entitled “Secret Gardens: Powerful Plots in Surprising Places” at the NYU Fales Library. The panel covered a wide range of professions, from journalist to professor and chef to farmer. Panelists tackled the big questions of where food comes from, what constitutes a farm and, in the words of moderator and food consultant Clark Wolf, “what is really going on” in our food system in the U.S.
While all of the panelists had very interesting things to say on the topics of agriculture and food, speaker George Reis’ comments came the closest to capturing the spirit of the talk’s title. As the Supervisor of Sustainable Landscaping at NYU, Reis is responsible for all the gardens at NYU. He joked that, at first, his job doesn’t sound that impressive. NYU is a dense urban campus with little green space compared to the rolling grassy quads of many other universities. What could he possibly do with gardens at NYU?
Reis’ answer: a great deal.
He and his team of student gardeners have planted upwards of forty native plant species in tiny individual garden plots around the NYU campus. Yet again he asked, why bother? These hyper-contained garden spaces are seemingly dwarfed by their urban surroundings: huge buildings, concrete, and cars flying by. What chance does a garden stand?
Reis’ answer: a big one.
Reis uses these native plants to connect people to their environment, contending that these small spaces can have a big impact because they have a big audience, (referring directly to the 1980 classic by William H. Whyte, The Social Life of Urban Spaces). Reis got involved in gardening for this very reason; he saw how powerfully and viscerally people respond to native blooms while walking down New York City streets. This inspired him to keep planting.
Reis is not alone, with gardeners and urban farmers across the city tilling New York’s urban soils. They do so for beauty, for utility and for many reasons in between. However, wherever they do, the image of green growing juxtaposed against hard concrete edges and huge buildings is enough to raise a litany of questions about our urban environment and the place of this green growth within it.
A ten by ten plot of tomatoes growing on a corner somewhere in the city may not be able to feed the neighborhood, but it can start a conversation. According to Reis, therein lies the power of these “powerful plots in surprising places.” This little bit of green is exactly the surprise that New Yorkers need to catch their attention and inspire them to think about their environment in new and different ways.
Comments (1)
Hi Alex: I was at the same inspiring panel tho I haven’t had a chance to blog about it at http://www.lornasassatlarge.wordpress.com.
I’d love to hear more about your program at Hunter. I’m eager to audit some courses in food systems and security this fall. I’d be very grateful to hear from you. TX!