A child provides one of the best excuses to play in snow, and I often wonder whether adults may be more excited by the prospect of building snowmen and sledding than their children. But it is of no matter, because no law is being broken by adults who want to partake in this perennial rite of winter and enjoy all things snowy in New York City.

As I wrote in White By Design 2, tracts of unadulterated snow are few and short-lived here, so those wanting to reenact their play days of childhood must, unlike our country brethren, act quickly with no deliberation.
As I passed through Washington Square Park in the early morning after our recent heavy snowstorm, families had already been busy with their handiwork. Snowmen were everywhere to be found.

Growing up in New England, playing in snow was one of our favorite activities. As a child, I was bundled in a snowsuit and, thoroughly insulated, was sent out into that white winter wonderland for endless hours of frolicking. I would make snow men, snow angels, and igloos, ride a sled, or I would just run, jump, and throw myself with reckless abandon into nature’s plush, deep, white cushion.

All my antics and creations were applauded by family members who remained indoors, watching behind windows in their cozy habitat, signaling with gestures of encouragement and approval over any small thing or act. As I grew older, I became an audience member for my younger sisters, enjoying their play from the warmth of our kitchen.

Certainly, snow is inconvenient and troublesome, particularly its removal in a large city such as New York. But I am going to put those practical thoughts aside for now, because as I write this, I am watching a parent pull his child in a sled through my window, from the cozy comfort of my home, as I secretly encourage them in all manner of snow play 🙂

Don’t give something important to citizens if you ever plan to take it away – people do not respond well to “temporary.” A good example is the rent stabilization and rent control laws of New York City – highly contentious legislation between landlords and tenants, slowly and painfully being phased out. Regardless of very specific historical reasons for such laws and irrespective of whether they are any longer fair or reasonable, the past is now irrelevant to those who are reaping the benefits.

In 1999, to quell public uproar and facing three lawsuits, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani negotiated to sell 63 gardens to the Trust for Public Land, a national private conservation group. Decades ago, when the city was plagued with urban decay and was in severe financial condition, the city permitted community groups to transform vacant lots into gardens as part of an open-ended agreement. The Giuliani administration ended that agreement by attempting to auction the plots of land to developers, but he ultimately sold the plots to the Trust for Public Land for $3 million.

The garden in today’s photo is the Parque de Tranquilidad, located at 314-318 East 4th Street between Avenues C & D in the East Village on the site of a former synagogue. The garden is located directly across the street from the much larger El Jardin del Paraiso.

This verdant oasis is carefully and beautifully manicured – it is one of the most meticulously maintained public gardens I have seen. It is a densely planted haven with winding stone pathways, wood fencing, flower gardens, and birdhouses.

This minipark is arguably the best example of the design work of the late urban garden pioneer Liz Christy, of the Council on the Environment of New York City. Christy is widely known for starting the first New York City community garden in 1973 at Bowery and Houston streets, now named in her honor. TPL expects to convey the entire garden to the Manhattan Land Trust in 2009.

Not everything can or should be reduced to a business proposition. In a city with so much concrete, park land really provides important respite from the urban environment. To some, seeing prime real estate like this being used as a small park or community garden may appear to be a colossal waste of resources or a lost investment opportunity. But consider that any new housing built here would accommodate very few tenants at market prices. In aggregate, even if all of these gardens were converted to residential properties, they would only house a tiny number of people and make relatively no impact on the housing crisis, which involves those seeking lower cost housing and not the affluent.

Although a human being has basic needs for survival, the human spirit needs care too…

Related Posts: Guerillas in our Midst, Shangri-La, Devil’s Playground, La Plaza Cultural Garden, Grapes, Stay Lean Stay Hungry, Urban Oasis, Alberts Garden, West Side Community Garden, Bird Country, Hua Mei Bird Garden

There is a type of war being fought which has a very pleasant outcome, and unlike the war on drugs, it has been quite successful. I speak of the guerrilla gardening movement. They have weapons too – in addition to books, videos, and websites, guerrilla gardeners have cool gadgets such as seedbombs (which come in a least 6 varieties – classic clay seed ball, NYC grenade, Kabloom Seedbom, explosive eggs, seed balloon, and seed pills which can be shot from a camera), automatic seed shoes, and even a subversive gardener attache case. See drawings here.

This is now an international effort. In 2004, Richard Reynolds started GuerrillaGardening.org, a blog regarding his solo efforts at gardening outside Perronet House, a residential apartment complex in London. In 2008, his book On Guerrilla Gardening was published, describing activities in 30 countries. Visit his website here.

And right here in the midst of Manhattan, we have the origins of the modern movement and the term guerrilla gardening. Liz Christy and her Green Guerrilla group, who formed in 1973, are generally credited with the first use of the term. The group transformed a vacant lot into what would end up becoming a community garden. The plot is an entire city block in length on Houston Street, extending from Bowery to 2nd Avenue.

I have seen this garden for decades, but it is the massive tree and sharing it on this blog that finally drew me in, entering a world much larger than I ever imagined. See more photos here.
The garden has a small pond which is home to fish and turtles, a wildflower habitat, beautiful wooden furniture, a grape arbor, a grove of weeping birch trees, fruit trees (including an an ornamental orange tree), vegetable gardens, berries, herbs, hundreds of varieties of flowering perennials, and its pièce de résistance that drew me there: the towering dawn redwood.

This massive tree is one of a handful in New York City. A native to the Sichuan-Hubei region of China, the Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) was introduced to the United States in 1948. The one at the Liz Christy Garden is 30 years old, stands at about 110 feet tall (estimated to grow to 150 feet), and can be seen from many blocks away.

To all those who have worked hard to bring some green to our urban world, I salute those guerrillas in our midst 🙂

Historical Note: There were earlier “guerrilla gardeners,” most notably, Gerrard Winstanley of the Diggers in Surrey, England (1649), and John “Appleseed” Chapman in Ohio (1774 – 1845).