Community Gardens Thrive in Urban Jungle

New Yorkers grow crops, plants in green spaces

April 21, 2011

It’s nearly nine a.m. on a workday but Noah Kaufman, volunteer manager of the 113th Street Play Garden, cannot help stopping at the 12-by-30-meter green space. Grabbing a hand trowel, he turns over the pebbly loam looking for worms for his plot.

Peter Shenk KoontzOrganizer Catherine Wint helps train gardeners at the Roberto Clemente Community Garden in the South Bronx.

"New York City is, if anything, the built environment. We have plenty of concrete. We have plenty of bricks. We have plenty of steel," says Kaufman. "We have little, little places like this vest pocket park, which are a small oasis, a piece of green, a place where there are trees, where there are weed trees, fruits trees which have been planted by humans or planted by nature provide a little refuge from the city. So for the neighbors here on 113th street, this is our front yard and we share it."

The community garden has been a refuge for Alexandra Patz and her 7-year-old son ever since her family moved to New York from the suburbs where they had their own yard.

"When we moved to the city, I was glad to find on this block that there was this little garden where we could become involved, and where my son could experience digging and growing things," says Patz.

Noah Kaufman helps manage the 113th Street Community Play Garden.