Berkeley Street Community Garden

The Berkeley Street Community garden in the South End is one of my favorite green spaces in Boston. It occupies a half block, bordered by Tremont, Berkeley, and Shawmut, that was cleared for Urban Renewal sometime in the 60's. It was not developed, as it's neighbor, Castle Square, and was instead appropriated by the Asian Community from Chinatown into gardens. In 1991, the South End Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust acquired the Berkeley Street parcel from the BRA, and formalized ownership of the gardens. The roughly 150 plots are a mix of ornamental spaces and food crops. The spaces for food crops are identified by the mesh of scrap metal and window screens used to construct trellises for growing Bitter Melon vines. Today about 50% of the lots are still Asian owned. I am drawn to the Garden for the maze of handmade structures used to intensely farm these small plots of land. I walk through the garden most mornings on the way to work and see gardeners of different cultures, ages, and economic groups working collectively to maintain this public space.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Berkeley
• Street
• Community
• Garden

[SamuelHammer]

THANK YOU! for showing us this great urban garden. I think garden spaces like this in the city bridge the gap between urban and rural, buildings and green spaces, and provide spaces for people to interact with one another and with nature. I hope this course has helped to bridge the gap between science and design, beauty and the "hard facts" of photosynthesis, etc. Great work on the film! Glad you put it in!