First Street Garden

Overview

The garden was first cleaned up and transformed into a community garden in 1983. Before the gardening group built the garden which is largely ornamental in style , the garden was an eyesore, a garbage dump and a magnet for criminal activity attracting rats, drug activity, rapists, muggers and thieves of all sorts. The gardeners have removed the filth and debris from the sidewalk in front of the garden, and at their sole expense secured the garden with fencing and gates and have planted numerous plants and trees including iris, violets, ferns, lily of the valley, black eye susan, ground cover and other wild flowers, birch, maple and mulberry trees. A small fish pond was maintained for many years by children among our gardeners for whom the garden is a vital resource as no similar verdant resource exists nearby. Birds are drawn to the lush greenery with nesting sites appearing seasonally. A lovely garden path has been constructed by recycling used bricks found at the garden site. A new planting bed was just installed in the front of the garden providing sunlit space for summer flowers.

Creative Community Cases LES
updated 01/2010 by NYC DESIS Lab