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Urban Agriculture: East New York: Farmers Market

Urban Omnibus
• Jan 06, 2009

Urban Agriculture: East New York is a documentary video in five chapters that explains how East New York’s urban agriculture movement evolved. Each chapter is dedicated to one piece of a complicated process: a portrait of a veteran local farmer in her garden; a trip to the East New York farmer’s market; a look at asset mapping analysis by the Pratt Center; land transfers from HPD to Green Thumb; and the investment in the neighborhood’s youth made by agricultural organizers and experts.

In this piece, we explore the East New York farmers’ market. It’s open every Saturday between June 28th and November 15th. This August, the farmer’s market celebrated its tenth anniversary.

Clearly, there’s a lot more to this story than we were able to include. Check out some other precedents, community groups and further reading below, and send us links you think we should know about:

Earthworks Urban Farm: Detroit
Nationwide Urban Farming Site Listing
NPR: Farms Take Root in Detroit’s Foreclosures
Growing Home, Inc.

And last but not least, the live performance you just heard at the East New York Farmers’ Market is original work by local MC and vocalist “Lyrical Artist.” Check her out on MySpace:
Lyrical Artist on MySpace Music

The views expressed here are those of the authors only and do not reflect the position of The Architectural League of New York.

Environment Neighborhood
Brooklyn

Comments

Mike January 8, 2009

The East New York Farmers’ Market looks far more interesting than any of the greenmarkets in Manhattan.
myrvin March 6, 2009

This market is no more. The land has been sold to a developer. It took too long to take off. Local resident.
Alec Appelbaum April 19, 2009

The exchange between Cassim and Myrvin highlights a parallel urban allergy: when we lack stories about how the city changes, we rely on models from literature or film. Often, we imagine fiendish developers who aren’t there: the generic name for any entity altering the landscape is “They.” (You know: “they tore down the theater and put up a condo with a WaMu in the lobby.”) When you spend a little more time out in the neighborhoods and deep in data on city websites, you understand a little more about how slowly developers can really change land uses. But only a little- more knowledge always comes from more eyewitnesses. So I hope we can make rumors the sparkplugs for conversations- with more misinformation comes more hunger for more information and more vigilance about aligning our hopes to our facts.
morgan pinney September 29, 2009

great feature. and thanks for the links!

Explore

Urban Agriculture: East New York: Agricultural Organizing

Deborah Greig, Urban Agriculture Coordinator for East New York Farms!, explains the history of the organization in the context of the neighborhood.

Urban Omnibus • Jan 21, 2009
Urban Agriculture: East New York: Land Transfers

In this piece, Holly Leicht, Deputy Commissioner of Development at HPD, explains the recent history of the city's involvement in East New York.

Urban Omnibus • Jan 13, 2009
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