WHAT: Ribbon-cutting-ceremony for Fifth Street Farm, an innovative new rooftop garden on the East Village’s Robert Simon Complex, home to the Earth School, PS 64, and Tompkins Square Middle School.
WHO: Students, teachers, and parents from the Earth School, PS 64, and Tompkins Square Middle School; architect Michael Arad; supporters of Fifth Street Farm; attorneys from the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center; city elected officials including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, City Council Member Rosie Méndez, and State Senator Daniel Squadron.
WHEN: Friday, October 12, at 1 p.m.
WHERE: Robert Simon Public School Complex, 600 East Sixth Street (at Avenue B)
BACKGROUND: The Fifth Street Farm Project will unveil an innovative, low-cost rooftop garden designed by 9/11 Memorial architect Michael Arad at the Robert Simon Complex in the East Village, home to the Earth School, PS 64, and Tompkins Square Middle School. Working with a limited budget and challenging space, a dedicated group of teachers, parents, students, and community partners spent six years developing plans and gathering funds and permits to build the rooftop garden.
The new 2,400-square-foot rooftop farm will foster a greater awareness and understanding of the natural world, especially the role plants play in the food web, by providing the means for low- and middle-income inner-city schoolchildren to grow, harvest, and eat herbs, vegetables, and fruit. The space can also accommodate study of environmental and natural science, including experimentation with storm-water capture and solar energy.
The Villager wrote about it here back in April 2011.
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