Guess who has a nonprofit sponsor for the community garden (AND A VISUAL RENDERING!)?
*Visual renderings above by block resident Brady Noé Arellano. He killed it.
The nature of progress, I’ve found, is that as much as you want it to go in step-by-step, linear fashion like a straight shot down the open highway, the reality is that it’s much more like city driving. Stops and starts, bits and spurts. Sometimes you’re flying up 8th Avenue and the green lights are unfolding for you one-by-one like dominoes. Other times your Uber driver has taken a bizarre right turn down 46th Street and now you’re stuck behind a horse cop and a guy in a Buzz Lightyear costume trying to inch your way across Times Square.
Today, my friends, is not one of those other times. Susan Numeroff, who is both the president of the West 400 Block Association (a few streets below us in Chelsea) and the resident mover and shaker of the entire Chelsea neighborhood, put me in touch with John Mudd, who is the president of Midtown South Community Council. Midtown South is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that has an array of interests generally involving improving the quality of life for New York City residents, and one of those interests is urban gardening. The big headline for you here is that Midtown South is interested in being a nonprofit fiscal sponsor for our potential community garden. Our nerdier readers will recall that in order for the owner of the lot to get a property tax exemption in leasing the lot to us—which is likely make or break for this entire project—we needed a nonprofit fiscal sponsor to act as the lessee on the lease. What I’m trying to say to you right now in somewhat lawyerly fashion is the following: this is a breakthrough for us.
Also, we have our very first visual rendering of the garden, put together by our very own Brady Noé Arellano—check him out on our Humans page. I say our “very own” because I’ve asked Brady to be on our core group of advisors (main responsibilities: occasional walks and occasional texts) as we try to build a little community here. As far as I can tell, Brady just downloaded some free software and whipped these visuals up in a few hours. Some people really do have it like that, my friends. This guy is absolutely dangerous.
What we need help with now:
Outreach to local businesses large and small that may want to lend a bit of (financial) support to this project. The following big companies have presences right in our neighborhood, and as I’ve said before, a little shamelessness can go a long way here: Google, Peloton, Whole Foods, Home Depot, Related, Brookfield, and others.
Outreach to other organizations (nonprofits, gardens, etc.) that may want to partner with us.
Putting some signs outside of the lot saying something like “What if we use this space as a community garden?” I think that will get people jazzed, but I need to talk to the owner again before we do it.
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