NYC NOW - September 5, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

It's a wrap for Central Park's Delacorte Theater until the Spring of 2025. The home of the Public Theater's annual "Shakespeare in the Park" shows is getting a $77 million dollar facelift that will keep it closed for the next 18 months. Also, the union representing Staten Island Ferry workers has reached a contract agreement with the city for the first time in 13 years. And five women in Brooklyn are winners of the inaugural "Just Brooklyn Prize" which honors individuals fighting for racial justice in the borough. And lastly, WNYC’s David Brand has advice for people who want to get involved in a community garden.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. That's a wrap for Central Park's Delacourt Theater, at least until the spring of 2025. The home of the public theater's annual Shakespeare in the Park shows is getting a $77 million facelift that will keep it closed for the next year and a half. The temporary closure came just a day after the public concluded its latest season of Shakespeare in the Park with a production of The Tempest, The Delacourt was built in 1962. It's undergone a few minor renovations in the decade since. Plans for the latest remodel were approved by the city last year.

The union representing Staten Island ferry workers had reached a contract agreement with the city for the first time in 13 years. Roland Rexa is the secretary-treasurer for the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association. We have achieved a remarkable feat, transforming the lowest paid ferry jobs in the nation into the highest pay. Disaccomptain was made possible by our members transitioning to a 40-hour work week, providing immediate relief to ongoing staffing shortages. Ferry workers had worked 32-hour weeks. Staffing shortages contributed to several disruptions to ferry services over the years when crew members would call out sick. The deal is retroactive to November of 2010. It expires in January of 2027.

City officials blame the issue on the long-running contract dispute. Five women in Brooklyn are winners of the inaugural Just Brooklyn Prize announced today at honor individuals fighting for racial justice in the borough, each gets a $20,000 no strings attached cash award. Among the winners is Deborah Ack. She helped found the East New York Community Land Trust and got new storm sewers and catch basins installed in a flood prone neighborhood in central Brooklyn, widely known as the whole. Now you can just wear a pair of rain boots and you'll be okay. You would be able to see the streets when it rained before you couldn't see the street would be all water. The prize is presented by the Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Community Foundation and the Social Justice Fund from billionaire couple and Brooklyn Nets owners Joe and Clara Sci. An award ceremony takes place September 18th at Barclay Center. Stick around. There's more after the break. All this week, the Morning Edition team is talking about community gardens, the history of these urban gems and all of the issues that play out within them. And it's all leading up to a live broadcast from Hattie Carthin Community Garden in Bedstay on Friday. There are more than 550 community gardens in New York City tucked between high rises or blooming and once vacant lots. The green spaces depend on New Yorkers to plant the seeds, pick the weeds, and harvest the fruits and veggies. But it's not always clear how people can get involved in their local community garden.

WNIC's David Brand joins us now to offer advice for New Yorkers who want to get their hands dirty. It clearly takes a lot of work to keep the gardens growing, but many people don't have any idea how they can get involved. So what would you tell our listeners about that? These gardens are really neighborhood treasures, and they're also public spaces meant for everyone to enjoy. First, the gardens are required to be open to the public from April 1st to October 31st. They're supposed to be open for 20 hours a week. Now, they have different hours depending on the location, and usually those hours are posted on the signs outside. And that's when the volunteers who run the gardens come by to unlock the gates and allow people inside.

Carlos Martinez is the director of the Parks Department's Green Thumb program, which oversees the gardens. He says people should just show up. That's the best way to connect with your local garden. Just visit them. This is the perfect time to explore these spaces and explore your own neighborhood. There's also social media. A lot of these gardens have Facebook or Instagram pages, and many have websites. And David, how can people find out where they are?

Well, the Parks Department has an interactive. map of every community garden in the city with links to those websites and contact information for their green thumb coordinators. Those are the people who are liaisons between the gardens and the city. You can email the coordinators and say you want to get involved. Garden groups govern and design their own green spaces and all of them have different requirements for members. Some, for example, charge dues to keep up with maintenance, some host regular orientation days a few times a month. But others welcome volunteers on a rolling basis

and assigned tasks more informally. Cheyenne Wright manages Walcott Farm at the Red Hook Houses. It's a public housing complex in Brooklyn. And the garden there is gorgeous. It's full of wooden planters bursting with all kinds of vegetables. There's kale and Swiss chard tomatoes.

And she says they have about 40 people working in their garden, and they're always looking for more gardeners to join them. Our volunteer sessions runs every Wednesday and every Saturday. So people would just stop in all those times and they'll just contribute any type of work that they want to help us with. And we also have a garden club on the Walcott Farm. We just started it this year where people from Red Hook come

and they tend to their own garden, they get their own plot of land, and they grow whatever they want to grow. When I stopped by there, there were five young volunteers who were picking weeds and harvesting tomatoes from the huge plants growing there. And the whole garden smelled like basil. David, a lot of people want to grow their own flowers and food and pick those plump red tomatoes.

What kind of experience do they need to have? None, and that's the beauty. You could be totally new to agriculture. Gardener's tell me the key is just showing up and staying consistent. Clarissa James founded the Garden of Resilience on a vacant lot in Springfield Gardens, and she says they need volunteers who are just committed to getting their hands dirty, even if it's just for a few minutes a week. The most important thing to keep the beauty up is being able to get in there and pull all of those weeks.

Even having volunteers come in and weed the garden from 15 minutes to 30 minutes a week would be such a huge contribution. She says one volunteer comes by to take garbage cans to the curb a couple times a week. And other gardens need people to handle more administrative tasks. So there's really something for everyone. David, we live in a city with limited green space, even more so for some communities. So what makes these gardens so special? Every garden really shows community members' commitment to the neighborhood. These gardens started when everyday residents began to reclaim vacant and abandoned lots.

They turned something ugly into something beautiful and really important for the health of the community. I asked Carlos Martinez, the head of the Green Thumb program, if he has a favorite. It's like asking a parent about their favorite child. The beauty of these Green Thunctum Community Gardens is they are a reflection and represent the uniqueness of each. neighborhood. Well, I know our listeners have their own personal favorites and memories at the gardens in their neighborhoods, and we look forward to hearing from them. That's WNIC's David Brand, speaking with my colleague Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. You can catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Sean Carlson. We'll be back tomorrow.