Friday, October 28, 2016

Ribbon-cutting ceremony marks return of a community garden on Avenue C


[Image via @RosieMendez]

As we've been noting in recent months, the empty lot between Eastville Gardens and 115 Avenue C (between Eighth Street and Seventh Street) has been renovated to create a new community garden.

On Wednesday afternoon, local elected officials, led by City Councilmember Rosie Mendez, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the official opening of the Carmen Pabon Garden ... named for the longtime LES activist and community gardner. (She is in the above photo to the right of the sign.)

There's some contentious history here... Eastville Gardens, the apartment complex whose official address is 342 E. Eighth St., is on the site once occupied by El Jardin de la Esperanza. The 22-year-old garden was bulldozed in February 2000 to make way for the new development via Donald Capoccia of BFC Partners. (You can read more background here.)

According to the Lo-Down, who attended the ceremony:

Before the ribbon cutting, Capoccia made brief remarks, telling community activists gathered in the newly opened space, “It’s really the beginning of my rehabilitation” in the neighborhood. Capoccia said he’s now an, “embracer of community gardens.”

DNAinfo reports that local architect Paul Castrucci designed the garden, which features Magnolia and Pink Dogwood trees, cherry laurel and holly shrubs. It will reportedly be open year-round.


You can watch a video biography of Pabon here.


[Photo from last month by Dave on 7th]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Part of a community garden reappears 16 years after it was bulldozed

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice and encouraging..good news

cmarrtyy said...

Bravo! One for us!

Anonymous said...

This his great! Kind of bums me out to see it so boringly structured and more cement than greenery, but maybe once it's lived in a bit and more plants grow, etc. it will work itself out.