The Happy Place

by Mary Jasch

Kam Hollifield, 86, tends herbs in garden plot #14 in a community garden in Spanish Harlem. Nearby, Adee Stamen, neighborhood resident, works in raised bed #10 as a group of kids come out to water the tomato plants in their class's plot.

This is "El Sitio Feliz," The Happy Place, a play lot adjacent to Leggett Day Care Center at 237 East 104th Street.

"The garden is a place where youth and seniors co-habitate," says Earl Plante, director of development for Union Settlement Association, which operates Leggett Day Care. "The seniors see the enthusiasm of the kids. That's infectious. There's a lot of isolation when people get older. For the kids, it's seeing and being mentored by someone they look up to. That sort of experience is invaluable. It doesn't happen that often."

El Sitio Feliz is a garden of many entities as most community gardens are in New York City. As a GreenThumb Garden on city-owned land, it is preserved in perpetuity as long as it is used as a garden and maintained, and as long as Union Settlement pays its $1.00 a year rent. It is a "Lot-for-Tots" -designed and developed by public and private effort on a grand scale.

It took the conviction of the Union Settlement Association and the Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC, a city agency in the Office of the Mayor) who believes in their cause and raised the funds to build and maintain the garden.

The Council provides dollars, education and training, horticultural workshops and materials to El Sitio Feliz through its Open Space Greening Program, Plant-A-Lot. This site is one of 12 Lots-for-Tots in New York City and one of two in Manhattan.

New York law requires that child care centers provide outdoor recreation for the kids on good days. Sites are chosen based on site conditions and amenities, and organization and community interest.

Union Settlement is an umbrella organization that offers services for lower-income East Harlem residents - mostly Hispanic and African-American - with programs spread over 16 sites. Here at East 104th Street, they run Leggett Day Care, the Gaylord White Senior Center, Head Start, a credit union - and "El Sitio Feliz."

"We try to give people the skills, education and support they need to improve their station in life," says Plante. "To live richer, fuller lives in spite of all the challenges in this area. East Harlem is near one of the most pricey, places in the country. It's a dichotomy."

El Sitio Feliz is part playground, part garden and theater-in-the-round, but Hollifield remembers when it was all garden and when Gerard Lordahl, CENYC director, was her gardening teacher at the senior center.

Long before Hollifield's squirrel-retardant garlic flowers bloomed here, decrepit row houses stood here until they were torn down.

"When we came here, it was a vacant lot," says Lordahl. "People were sifting the rubble to make soil."

The lot became a GreenThumb garden in the late '80s and the Council stepped in to redesign the space when Union Settlement wanted a place for kids to play. They got almost $300,000 from then borough president David Dinkins, Leggett, and the Louis and Ann Abrons Foundation, according to Lordahl. They created El Sitio Feliz, a play lot and garden for children and community residents.

"If you walk around the neighborhood there's not too much green space," Plante says. "It's so crucial that we have a public/private relationship to support the garden. Mentoring, expressions, there are a lot of different things that people get out of the space."

The day care garden plot is a class project called "Union Washington School Age II" - a big name, but the kids undauntingly do it all. From beginning to end, they affect and watch the life of an edible plant to its harvest.

The kids dip into barrels of rainwater and toss it on the tomatoes. "You see where the stem comes up from the bottom?" a teacher asks a girl. "That's where you want to put the water." And she does.

Even Head Start groups have garden beds here.

A hedge of Japanese holly separates the garden from the playground, and beyond that apple and peach trees grow near Manischewitz grapes growing on an arbor.

Besides the 25 raised beds in the garden and the playground, El Sitio Feliz has shade structures, picnic areas, pond, border plantings of trees, shrubs and flowers, and an amphitheatre.

"Name every culture that's here," says Stamen, when asked who performs in the amphitheatre.

"Mostly youth programs are held in the theater and are very well attended. People like to see other folks express themselves in a positive way," says Plante.

Hollifield grows fennel that's taller than she is "because I'm interested in Shakespeare and like to plant the herbs mentioned in his plays." She comes here three times a week. Stamen grows mostly edibles - swiss chard, nasturtiums. She's been here since '93.

Union Settlement wants more man-power to increase programming, maintain the community garden and to actualize El Sitio Feliz's potential.

"It's a multi-use space for all generations," says Plante. "That's so important to cultivate."

http://www.cenyc.org/

Back to article