Siempre Verde Community Garden
The relatively new Lower East Side community garden, Siempre Verde, serves as a local space for community get togethers, including performances, yoga practice, community picnics, planting veggies and flowers and composting.
Siempre Verde (Ever Green) has beautiful murals, and sustainable living and educational resources. Community action reclaimed this urban space to strengthen resiliency, and with social justice in mind, the garden was established in Nov. 2012 with the help of 569 Acres and NYC Park’s GreenThumb program. In 2021, the garden is flourishing and it's a great place to quietly enjoy the singing of birds and rustling of leaves.
Before it closed its doors, 596 Acres was helping neighbors organize to transform acres of vacant public land that are hidden in plain sight behind chain-link fences in New York City, especially in neighborhoods deprived of beneficial land uses. Their website still has great resources and replicable best practices.