Rooted in the Hood: An Intimate Portrait of New York Citys Community Gardens by Anna Angelidakis


Rooted in the Hood: An Intimate Portrait of New York Citys Community Gardens
Title : Rooted in the Hood: An Intimate Portrait of New York Citys Community Gardens
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1943532761
ISBN-10 : 9781943532766
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 300
Publication : Published March 15, 2020

Rooted in the Hood is a photo essay celebrating the community gardens of New York City and the people who create, cultivate, and enjoy them. The late '60s and '70s witnessed the devastation of New York City, with many buildings in low-income areas left unattended, burned, and reduced to rubble. Drug dealers, gangs, and junkies soon moved in making those neighborhoods unsafe to live. This is a book about ordinary people, dreamers, and visionaries rising against these unsafe conditions by clearing empty lots, planting trees and vegetables, and slowly creating small havens for the community. By drawing attention to these local gardens, the book wishes to provide awareness of the importance of green spaces, not only in our great New York City, but across the country and around the world. There is an urgent need to protect these unique enclaves from further development.

Rooted in the Hood: An Intimate Portrait of New York Citys Community Gardens Reviews

  • Tripfiction

    Love NEW YORK? Love gardens? You need this book

    Our You Tube review:
    https://youtu.be/5c7zJ_uTX_4



    Did you know there are over 550 community gardens around New York? That is a staggering number and I really had no idea!

    In this beautifully produced tome, the author explores selected gardens in the Lower East Side, West Side and up in Harlem. She brings together musings, observations and a beautiful and eclectic selection of photographs. The sheer diversity of the gardens is astounding, the creativity and enthusiasm of the people who maintain them absolutely shines through the book. There are herb gardens, random ones, floral displays, vegetable plots, and statues and murals aplenty. The statues sometimes are wrapped up by the greenery and have experienced the heat and cold so they are truly becoming weather-worn, and yet stunning.

    The plots for the most part have been reclaimed from empty areas, which had gone to seed during the 60s/70s/80s when the city was experiencing quite a dark period in its history – drugs, attacks, arson and general mayhem were rife. The author says that no book on community gardens is complete without the mention of Liz Christy who teamed up with Green Guerrillas, who then took over the vacant lot and specialised in “seed bomb” (balloons stuffed with peat moss, fertiliser and wild flower seeds; they were then lobbed into the wastelands, and lo and behold a greener city was born)

    On my next visit I would love to spend a day checking some of them out, it’s like the city has its secrets that just need to be discovered. It would be one way of exploring at the next level – once you have seen all the big sites you want to see you can delve into the feel of local neighbourhoods, perhaps meet some of the people maintaining the gardens and just shoot the breeze. Brilliant for anyone who loves gardens and the city and something just a little bit different and quite inspirational!

    I spent a couple of hours immersed in the city, tantalised by the narrative and heartened by what people – if they set their minds to it – can create. The author, as I write, is exploring the gardens in the other boroughs of New York.

    Love New York? You need this book!

  • Bob

    This book was very comprehensive and visually beautiful, showing my a side of NYC I took for granted but now will seek out these locations covered in the book.

  • Marilyn

    A green and hidden urban world with food and sculpture and community..