The Billboard and the Garden: A Struggle for Roots

Urban Farm DB summary

An ethnographic narrative describing three community gardens in the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York City, long known as one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. On a Saturday morning in mid-October, beneath elevated subway tracks, the piece describes three lush, carefully tended gardens planted in neat rows with green beans, mint, onions, peppers, tomatoes and squash. Since the 1990s these gardens have been created and maintained through the effort and planning of a small number of neighborhood community gardeners, subsidized by city and state government but also at times jeopardized by it. The gardens are described as a tangible symbol of the ongoing struggle to put down roots in the city for those without much money.