FW: ACGA / Liberty Community Garden Dedication - Final

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• Subject: [cg] FW: ACGA / Liberty Community Garden Dedication - Final
• From: "Honigman, Adam" A*@Bowne.com
• Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 11:03:05 -0400

Dear gardeners,

Attached is the ACGA press release about the event in NYC this Sat. that
re-dedicates the Liberty Community Garden in Battery Park City near Ground
Zero. (I believe Adam Honigman already sent the Battery Park City release on
the event).

We look forward to welcoming a delegation from Seattle to present more of
the Million Flower Compost from the gardeners of Seattle's P-Patch program
to the gardeners at Liberty Community Garden.

If any of the list serve members can help get this story out to newspapers
and media contacts, please do so.  It is printed here as text but also as an
attachment.

Please let me know if you have good press contacts that we can add to our
new ACGA press list!

And, by all means, join us if you are in the NYC area on Sat.

Thanks,

Ellen Kirby, President
ACGA

-----Original Message-----
From: Urbecoart@aol.com [U*@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 11:09 AM
To: ellenkirby@bbg.org; rowley@nwlink.com; Michael.McCormack@cwt.com;
thuxley@bpcparks.org
Subject: ACGA / Liberty Community Garden Dedication - Final

ACGA
========================================
AMERICAN COMMUNITY GARDENING ASSOCIATION

c/o Philadelphia Green 
100 North 20 Street, 5th Floor. Philadelphia, PA. 19103. 215.988.8785

PRESS RELEASE

For Release:  September 28, 2002

Contact:    Ellen Kirby, 917.499.6330

Seattle Gardeners Give Million Flower Compost to
NYC COMMUNITY GARDEN NEAR WTC
Dedication of Restored Garden on September 28

On Saturday, September 28 from 11 a.m. to noon, the gardeners of Liberty
Community Garden in Manhattan's Battery Park City celebrate and rededicate
their 10-year old garden.  As the closest open space to WTC, the northern
section of Liberty Community Garden was used as a staging area during rescue

and clean-up efforts; more recently a section of the garden land was annexed

for the construction of the Rector Street Bridge.  A newly built area offers

growing beds to 29 displaced gardeners; another 28 gardeners continue to
work
in the garden's extant southern section.

Mixed into each growing bed will be a gift of love and solidarity from the
people of the City of Seattle.  Compost, prepared by Seattle's community
gardeners from the deluge of flowers brought to the September 2001 Seattle
Center Flower Vigil after September 11, will be mixed with the soil of New
York City.  A delegation of Seattle community gardeners, including Seattle
City Councilmember Richard Conlin, will attend the dedication ceremony and
present a cubic yard (1,400 pounds) of the Million Flower Compost.

Liberty Community Garden is located in front of the residential building
Liberty Court, between Rector and West Thames Streets, just west of West
Street.  (Access: Rector Street Bridge, Subway: #1 or R to Rector Street).

"We are thrilled to have our hands in the dirt again," says relocated
gardener, Michael McCormack.  "We were devastated by the destruction of our
garden and thought it was gone forever.  Battery Park City Parks
Conservancy,
which operates and maintains the parks of Battery Park City, was
instrumental
in making the new garden a reality.  Liberty Court has given us permission
to
garden here for the next two years, and we are hopeful that the garden will
be allowed to continue for many years to come.  However, in common with many

of New York's community gardens on city-owned land, our garden lacks
permanent status and is vulnerable to competing uses."

The City of Seattle, through its Department of Neighborhoods, sponsors the
P-Patch Community Gardening Program, one of the strongest community greening

programs in the country with nearly 70 gardens serving approximately 4,000
active gardeners.  As Seattle P-Patch gardener Jon Rowley recalls, "After
9/11, our community gardeners needed to do something we know how to do,
something that makes a difference."  So they created compost from the one
million flowers brought by over 75,000 people to the Seattle Center Flower
Vigil and designated a portion of it for the community garden closest to the

World Trade Center, which turned out to be Liberty Community Garden.  Jon
Rowley continues, "The once-steaming piles of compost are now ready to
engender new life.   We are gratified that some of the compost is to be a
part of Liberty Community Garden's renewal, and wish the garden long and
uninterrupted bounty and peace."    
                         
Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin says, "The City of Seattle
recognizes the value of community gardens and open green space to the vigor
and health of our neighborhoods and urban environments.  As a metaphor of
renewal, it is an honor to present on behalf of the City of Seattle and the
Seattle P-Patch community our Million Flower Compost and to join with New
Yorkers in celebrating the restoration of Liberty Community Garden.  We are
enormously proud of the hundreds of volunteers who made this compost happen.

May the flowers and other plants grown in this compost by Liberty gardeners
become a beacon of national recovery and renewal from the losses we have all

experienced."

In addition to City Councilmember Richard Conlin, the Seattle delegation
includes Jon Rowley, Kate McDermott, poet Ann Hursey, singer/songwriter John

Van Amerongen, Gary Shigenaka, and Mason Shigenaka, age 7, a student at the
John Stanford International School.

Ellen Kirby, President of the American Community Gardening Association which

helped broker the compost exchange during its recent international
convention
in New York City, states, "It's great to see one city help another restore a

community garden to new life.  That the restored garden is in New York where

a community garden settlement was announced on September 18 is especially
meaningful.  While many community gardens will be preserved under the terms
of this agreement, there are still many other wonderful gardens in New York
City that are threatened with extinction.  Until more cities join Seattle
and
see the great value of community gardens as part of vibrant neighborhood
planning, community gardens live in a very precarious state.  By linking
gardeners from city to city, coast to coast, ACGA supports the creation of
land use policies that protect and preserve the long term use of community
gardens as neighborhood community centers."

BPCPC Executive Director Tessa Huxley sums up, "Community gardens are a
terrific way to bring people together and strengthen neighborhoods.  New
York
and Seattle community gardeners have often worked together over the years,
but now, thanks to Seattle's wonderful gift of Million Flower Compost, the
bond between the two cities has deepened and strengthened.  And, that
Liberty
Community Garden is again whole powerfully symbolizes the healing of
downtown
Manhattan.  It's a simple equation: flourishing gardens = strong
relationships = healthy neighborhoods = vital cities."

#

Attachment: Liberty Garden ACGA 2.doc
Description: Binary data

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