Design and build: nyc
This is the story of how a group of teens, kids and adults made a park out of a toxic piece of land.
In lower manhattan, in Nyc on This Piece of land
this land was contaminated by oil from an abandoned bus garage in NYC. Oil seeped into the soil and into the school next to it.
A youth led group turned it inTo this schoolyard with organic gardens, compost, swales, stormwater ponds, greenhouses, solar powered waterfalls, basketball courts, skate/bike areas, swings & fruit trees.
The building in the center, behind the kids, is the old bus garage. The school is to the right.
A group of parents and neighbors got the old bus garage torn down. At the time I lived on this block and I was a teacher in a preschool around the corner. We brought our 2 and 3 year olds to a garden across the street, and we imagined turning this huge place into a garden.
After years of work by the neighbors, the building was torn down. We got permission to start work on the lot in 1993. we developed a bioremediation plan with funding from the department of sanitation. we brought in permaculture designers, experts in bioremediation, and engineers working on landfill capping.
Bill young, an engineer, and karl hammer, a composting farmer, helped us design a plan using compost and a liner. We spread the liner over the contaminated soil, so the soil microbes could digest the organic petroleum contaminants slowly, under the liner, while people would be protected from it.
We spread gravel over the liner, and compost over the gravel. We created a deep hole in the center of the land, for all the water to flow toward. Raphael, 14, second from the left, led the youth organizing and recruited Lisa, also 14, in the red pants. Raphael leads youth programs today with nando; you’ll hear more about that later.
Teams of kids and adults studied the site and the people who would use it.
nando, (standing) creates garden designs with a team of kids in 1994.
We built swales, streams and underground cement stormwater tanks connected to ponds.
All of the stormwater from the one acre park is collected on site. We built Underground pipes and above ground swales to direct water to the 60’ wide, 10’ deep pond. We pitched the land toward this central pond. The level rises and falls with the rainfall.
Kids and teenagers worked side by side with architects and engineers to deal with the contamination. We built the park through community construction at the same time as leading the professional construction of the one acre park.
Beatriz and Jake, 16 years old, (above right) work on surveying. They’re adjusting the slope of the field so water flows better to the pond.
Water retention ponds and permeable brick and cobblestone surfacing retain water for organic fruits and vegetables, trees, and grass fields.
Nando and beatriz sift compost made from local market waste.
Because the soil was contaminated, producing compost was essential. The team designed and patented a simple “living” compost bin that breathed in air through tubes by convection. A biofilter on the top layer converted bad smelling ammonia gas into useful soil nutrients. 6 children and three adults were on the design team. A patent was awarded to the “hot box” compost bin in ‘98.
The hot box became the heating system for a compost heated greenhouse. This made the gardens productive through the winter and provided a warm home base for the team to work from.
In the photos, left and below, Raphael designs and builds the compost heated greenhouse.
Melissa, left, works on a frame for a grape trellis, while Raphael above, builds a stream. Our design team was led by girls and boys in equal numbers
People visited from all over the world to exchange ideas. Here, Roberto Perez from Cuba meets with the team in ’99.
We organized the project so new “design and build” work would happen with a new “Core Design Team” of kids and teens each year, for 20 years. We redesigned the park with each new core design team, adding ponds and streams and removing and rechanneling them. Adding and removing greenhouses, propagating new trees from old ones, and moving mountains. team members who went on to college and careers stayed involved as new kids joined us.
Over a dozen youth from the 90’s who came through our “train the trainer, youth style” programs are still working on environmental projects today. we have followed them to their own projects in the Bronx, harlem, and brooklyn, and we contribute design assistance to their projects today. But Now the park I’m describing here is poorly kept and no longer open to the public. Why? When the school next door that used it for recess for 800 kids didn’t pay teachers to use their teaching time to maintain the park, teachers did it after school volunteer. When the after school program that used it for 1000 kids a day didn’t contribute to maintenance, we raised funds from other sources. This was a mistake. Our answer was “I will volunteer to help that, I’ll take care of it”. But that is not a rational design approach. Maintenance, along with a dedicated revenue stream, needs to be designed in along with the design of the whole project. There is a culture of ignoring outdoor space, environmental education, and children’s needs that means this site, (and every youth garden) do not have paid staff the way a building does. Nobody would build a building without a revenue stream for maintaining it year round. Why are we building gardens and parks without this?
Why do youth gardens and green playgrounds rely on volunteers, short term fundraising, service learning, parents, and teacher volunteers? Why aren’t there revenue streams dedicated to maintain these complex outdoor environments? What can we do to change that?
Here, Nando, one of the parks’ youth leaders at 13 in the photo on the left, plants seeds in our park in ’93. On the right is nando today in a youth garden in harlem. nando runs environmental programs with a paid staff of kids in Harlem, and he travels with them to cuba, haiti, ghana, and the domincan republic to exchange skills and build youth centers and gardens.
This fall, Nando is working with his team of kids to build solar experiments and Hot Box compost bins inside their greenhouse to get ready for the winter. we’re helping him raise funds to pay kids and advocate for long term maintenance. Please join us.