Liz Christy Garden

I don't generally count community gardens as part of this blog's quest to visit every park in New York City. There are six or seven hundred such gardens all over the five boroughs, and they're fundamentally different from parks. A park, for my purposes, is a space free from motorized traffic and intended at least in part for passive enjoyment. A garden is for growing things, whether for consumption or beauty or education.

I've made exceptions in the past when a community garden has something special about it or something that just appealed to me. The Liz Christy Garden in Manhattan's East Village is special, if only for the distinction of being the city's very first community garden.

Originally the Bowery Houston Community Farm Garden, the Liz Christy Garden was founded in 1973 by urban designer Liz Christy, who headed the city's Open Space Greening Program, and her Green Guerillas community activist group. They went on to create more green spaces around the city.

As City Lore explains: "Three decades into the movement, both the Liz Christy Garden and the Green Guerillas are established organizations that continue to provide leadership. Both welcome new gardeners and guerillas, for, as the gardeners’ orientation brochure so aptly states, 'In the dog-eat-dog world of Mother Nature, the weeds usually win.'"

Original founding member Donald Loggins recounted the garden's origin story to NY1 back on 2021.

When Christy died in 1985 the garden was renamed in her honor.

Community gardens often have charming disjunctions, like a path where brick-shaped blocks give way to larger, square slabs of bluestone or just find themselves in a bit a jumble. These bricks were repurposed from the buildings that once stood on the plot.

Unexpected details, like a dollar bill posted on a birdhouse or an antique birdbath on a stump, contribute to the character of places like this.

Wildlife is limited in community gardens because of their small size. Mostly you'll come upon birds, chipmunks, and squirrels. (And rats.) But if you're lucky you may come upon a human perched on a bench concealed by the dense flora. And if you're quiet you might even spot an individual maintaining the garden. Take photos and tread with caution, though, as these creatures are often shy.

The Liz Christy Garden also has a pond that is said to support fish, turtles, and frogs.

With its lush plantings and surprising seclusion this garden can offer a few minutes of nature and whimsy – things we city folk can all use more of.

All photos © Oren Hope

M'Finda Kalunga Community Garden at Sara D. Roosevelt Park

Inside Sara D. Roosevelt Park is one of Manhattan's more opulently planted community gardens. I've walked by the M'Finda Kalunga Community Garden a number of times but, it seems, never when it was open. So I never thought much about it.

One early evening in early May, I found the gates open and the spring plantings practically bursting out of their spaces.

The garden was founded in 1983 by the Roosevelt Park Community Coalition. Its plots are planted and maintained by dozens of individuals and community groups.

It's named in honor of the nearby African burial ground, which was removed in the mid-1800s, with the remains reinterred at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn. The New York City Cemetery Project website has further information and maps. The Garden's own website has a more detailed history, and also lists the opening hours, which are mostly on weekends.

Hyperallergic wrote in 2013 that, while an estimated 5,000 people were buried at the nearby cemetery, "there are only 485 interments on Find A Grave’s listing for the Cypress Hills plot." Some bones were found when the adjoining New Museum was constructed in the early 2000s. There could well still be remains under the streets.

That's true almost anywhere, though. Hyperallergic also noted that "It wasn't until 1809 that there was an ordinance that banned burials beneath streets and sidewalks." New York City is a great many things – among them, a ghost town.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Gil Hodges Community Garden

Once again I'm breaking my rule and covering a community garden. This time it's because the Gil Hodges Community Garden in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn is unlike any other space I've come across in the city.

The garden was founded in 1992, 20 years after the death of Gil Hodges, the Dodgers star and manager of the World Series champion 1969 Mets. Also known as the Carroll Street Garden, this spot became in 2013 the first of New York Restoration Project's community gardens to implement a storm water management system. By capturing storm water runoff it helps prevent untreated water from entering the nearby Gowanus Canal, which has been the subject of a huge cleanup project for many years.

The plants nurtured here seem to have been selected for their evocative names: sweetbay magnolia, mountainmint, orange azalea, ruby spice summersweet. It's almost enough to make you suspect the names were made up just for their sound.

Something about the design of the garden's shed struck my fancy. Here it is in all its architectural glory.

Letting my imagination run a little wild in the patio area, I was reminded of the courtyard of an Italian abbey.

Next up, I'll be getting back to actual parks, with a visit to park-rich Staten Island. But I felt this community garden unlike any other was worthy of a pause and a note.