A Visit to the Lower East Side

Lower East Side Blue Jay 

On Sunday October 8, I went over to the Lower East Side for a community garden tour led by a long-time friend, Wendy Brawer. She is the founder of Green Map (greenmap.org), which promotes local ecology, wellbeing, climate justice and sustainability. 

The community gardens in this neighborhood were created by residents in the 1970s and 1980s who got together to transform vacant lots where buildings had been demolished and turn them into green spaces for positive activities and refuge. After much controversy, and eventual public action to preserve them, many of the gardens have survived and are now protected from development as recognized city parks. At this point, the neighborhood provides an important model for community-based urban agriculture, sustainability, comradery and resilience.  

We met up at La Plaza Cultural at 9th Street and Avenue C (laplazacultural.com), east of Tompkins Square Park, and entered a fun mini-forest complex, with a central gathering and performance area powered by solar panels. It is surrounded by rough paths through trees, garden patches and art installations, as well as composting and rooftop water runoff equipment. 

Solar installations, rainwater capture, medicinal plants, a fig tree, and a tiny fish pond  al La Plaza Cultural

An exhibit in the nearby Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space showed how the undeveloped space looked in the 1970s, in a photo taken by resident Marlis Momber.

La Plaza Cultural in the 1970s

I didn't know very much about this neighborhood before, and was inspired by the years of political activism, art, and cultivation behind the creation of the community gardens, as well as the hope for a future based on neighborhood collaboration, urban agriculture, and resilience to climate change.  

Lower East Side American Robin

A few blocks away at the El Sol Brilliante Garden on 12th Street, the birds were not real, but still lovely, embedded in the fence created by artist Julie Dermansky. 

At the Campos Community Garden down the block, a vibrant plastic flamingo presided over a lush plot of edible plants and a tree full of ripe figs. 

There were no red-tailed hawks visible when we passed through Tompkins Square Park, but there was a touching tribute to Dennis Edge, an East Village resident since 1970 who photographed the birds there. His book 'Tompkins Square Park Birds' documented 108 species, and was published in September 2023, just weeks before he passed away at 85. 

You can get a copy by sending a check for $59 made out "Birds of Tompkins Square Park LLC" and mail it to:

East Village Postal

151 1st Avenue Suite 24

New York, NY 10003 

(with your return mailing address)