Jim, I read this your story (with my first cup of coffee, thank you) before a day filled with meetings. It is impossible to create a community garden without grassroots community support propelling it forward.
You story is classic, a prime example of how a Mother (or Father) Bountiful gets a project idea in their heads and plows straight ahead without asking anyone if they really want this pair of large Indian elephants that they bought for a song in India. Listen to the argument, " They live on peanuts, slow but non-fossil fuel transportation, they're great at earth moving and that garden of yours will never want for high quality manure." Anybody out there want these elephants? Today? Do-gooders who don't take in the facts, study local conditions and ask questions have a 50% -50% chance at best. You have to, in the words of advertising guy, Jerry Della Femina, "get out of your office, go down the elevator, buy lunch from a hot dog vendor. While you're stuffing your face, listen to what the guys on the street are saying. Ask a few questions ... the answers may surprise you!" A story: A friend of a friend was meeting me at the garden for an impromptu tour our the neighborhood. This is a newly divorced real estate executive (my friends have odd friends, what can I tell ya). Alimony and child support have "sunk-in" and the fellow is looking for "interesting, nontraditional living arrangements in Midtown Manhattan." He shook his head and says that the CCG's third of an acre in increasingly gentrified Hell's Kitchen would have been worth between $5 -- $10 Million Dollars during the last real estate boom. He seemed genuinely pained to hear the Clinton Community Garden had been mapped as parkland. I then proceeded to show him the plantings, bee hive and explained that out of our 4,000 key holders he might find congenial company should he decide to make our neighborhood his new home. I also explained that the garden was child friendly, well worth a visit between a museum and Mickey Des on the weekends when he had the kids. I directed him to some newly renovated overpriced "luxury apartments" in the area (2 - 3 grand seemed reasonable to this chap) did the "firm handshake" thing and walked off from our five to ten million dollar garden with car fare, a pair of shined shoes and the reassurance that the garden, with its' late season lushness would be there that evening when I watered. Best wishes, Adam Honigman ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
