From August 27, 1911
THE NEGLECTED POSSIBILITIES OF CITY ROOFS: Making the Best of Out-of-Door Life Is Slowly Being Learned — Comparatively Easy to Turn Roofs Into GArdens, Playgrounds and Concert Rooms. (PDF)
There have been a lot of articles about roof gardens in the New York Times over the last few years as the trend has finally caught on. But my favorite by far has to be a 2006 article about a Greenwich Village resident who built a whole front porch on his roof. Go check out the photos. Pretty nice.
This post is certainly about an issue close to my heart. I’m a gardener. Four decades ago, here, a six story, sturdy pre-war walk up, where I’ve lived for that long, we were a real community, and talked of the possibility of garden on the roof, started one, had a garden out back that we tended as a community space. We, the few of us oldies left in residence, have been barred from it since the new landlords felt threatened by the solidarity of our community and had other plans. that previous garden is now just an overgrown weed patch, and the roof is just a tar desert painted silver. Some of the ten trees we planted on the block are still alive. Real estate in NYC is about money, ownership, and power, as are most things in our world, and not about community. I’m pretty sure it’s the wrong motivation if anyone is interested in a harmonious, healthy planet.
Michelle in NYC
26 Aug 11 at 10:33 am