Community gardens in New York City: Difference between revisions

In 1895, the first gardens were founded in New York City by a committee of the [[Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor|New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor]] (AICP). The committee promoted the idea of gardening on vacant lots following the success of the first community gardening program in Detroit as a way to address food insecurity and lessen the reliance on charities and taxpayers.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=Lawson |first=Laura J. |title=City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America |publisher=University of California Press |year=2005 |isbn=0-520-24343-9 |pages=26-27, 46}}</ref> The committee also advocated for gardens as a way to develop skills in the hopes that gardeners would relocate to the country. The gardens were located in [[Long Island City]] on 7,200 city lots donated by [[William Steinway]]. [[Allotment (gardening)|Allotments]] for the roughly 100 families who tended the land ranged from one-quarter of an acre to eight acres. By the end of the first season, the program was deemed a success growing $11,000 worth of produce with a clear profit margin for farmers.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1895-10-20 |title=QUARTER-ACRE FARMING A SUCCESS; Over $6,000 Profit for Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor's City Lot Tillers. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1895/10/20/archives/quarteracre-farming-a-success-over-6000-profit-for-association-for.html |access-date=2024-01-11 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> In 1898, the AICP published a report about the gardening program as an ideal solution to unemployment and listed similar projects in nineteen cities.<ref name=":7" />

As adult interest in gardens began to wane, there was a renewed interest in children's gardening with the advocacy of [[Frances Griscom Parsons|Fannie Griscom Parsons]] in New York City. In [[DeWitt Clinton Park]], Parsons created a large educational garden in the early1902<ref 1900sname=":8" /><ref name=":7" /> as a way to "show how willing and anxious children are to work, and to teach them in their work some necessary civic virtues; private care of public property, economy, honesty, application concentration, self-government, civic pride, justice, the dignity of labor, and the love of nature by opening to their minds the little we know of her mysteries, more wonderful than any fairy tale.”<ref name=":8">{{Cite web |title=School Gardens : Grown from the Past: A Short History of Community Gardening in the United States |url=https://communityofgardens.si.edu/exhibits/show/historycommunitygardens/schoolgardens |access-date=2019-04-29 |website=Community of Gardens |language=en}}</ref> By 1911, [[St. Nicholas Park|St. Nicolas Park]], [[Highbridge Park]], [[Jackie Robinson Park|Colonial Park]], and [[Thomas Jefferson Park]] all hosted school gardens following the sucess in DeWitt Clinton Park. In 1917, New York City schools reported gardens on school grounds, parks, vacant lots, and home gardens.<ref name=":7" />