Esperanza Garden

Jardin de la Esperanza or Esperanza Garden was a community garden started in 1978 by Alecia Torres, a resident of New York City's Lower East Side, who began clearing rubble and trash out of an empty lot on East 7th Street, close to Ave C.^[1] The garden, later on, became a community space for growing medicinal plants, tending chickens, and a safe space for children to play.^[2][3]

Background

On February 15, 2000 Ezparanza Garden was demolished by the city government, after an ongoing feud between community residents and the

Beginning in 1999, and especially after receiving a 5-day demolition notice, activists, gardeners, and community organizers gathered to try and save the garden through direct action. According to Swarthmore's Global Nonviolent Action Database, these activists organized community events and watches so that at least two people would be in the garden 24 hours a day. They built and designed a giant Coquí, a symbol of Puerto Rico associated with a legend of resistance.^[2] On the day of the demolition, February 15, 2000, a call went out to a network of community residents who were willing to risk arrests, by 7:00am 150 people had showed up in protest, many of them locking themselves to the fence, the Coquí, and other garden landmarks.^[8] The video of the destruction is available on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/XFR_2013-07-31_2A_01.

The same day as the demolition Attorney General Eliot Spitzer put in place a temporary restraining order against the City that, at 2pm that same day, protected community gardens from demolition and auctioning by the City. Spitzer argued that the lots could be sold only after a state environmental review or an act of the Legislature.^[8]

References