2010-07-28 Paul Revere Garden Ride

Media Advisory

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Benjamin Shepard – 917.586.7952
Barbara Ross – 917.494.8164

CITY’S NEW RULES TO ELIMINATE PROTECTIVE STATUS AND ENDANGER HUNDREDS OF COMMUNITY GARDENS
Garden activists draw attention to the threat to community gardens by dressing up as Paul Revere and sounding the alarm, “the bulldozers are coming”

Time’s Up! Garden Ride to Save the Community Gardens Thursday July 29th, 2010
Starts at 7:00pm, Tompkins Square Park

New York, NY (July 28th, 2010) – This Thursday, July 29th, garden supporters – dressed as Paul Revere – will join a Garden Bike Ride organized by Time’s Up!, a direct action environmental group, to sound the alarm and call attention to new rules being drafted by the City that allow gardens to be legally transferred to developers and risk the destruction of hundreds of community gardens. The new rules would replace the 2002 Preservation Agreement, which allowed gardens throughout the city to thrive over the last decade. The 8-year-old Preservation Agreement expires on 9/17/2010. Cyclists will ride their “horse cycles”- bicycles with cardboard horse heads attached to the front, and visit several Lower East Side Gardens before heading up to Mayor Bloomberg’s house where they will bring the Mayor flowers, cucumbers and greens from endangered community gardens.

“We’ll bring home-grown vegetables from gardens to Bloomberg’s house to remind him that community gardens are precious resources for us all to treasure,” explained Times Up! volunteer Benjamin Shepard. “My kids love the gardens as a much needed space to play and explore outside of the asphalt of the concrete jungle of New York City.”

“This is an opportunity for Bloomberg to demonstrate that he appreciates green space as a resource for global cooling and community development,” explained Times Up! Director Bill DiPaola. “The Mayor needs to keep the bulldozers off the community gardens, make them permanent and use the opportunity to create a greener, more forward thinking New York.”

Relevant Links:

Photos of Time’s Up’s campaign to save the Community Gardens

Additional actions scheduled to save the Community Gardens

Department of Housing Preservation & Development proposed new rules

Department of Parks & Recreation proposed new rules

 

 Bulldozer destroys Esperanza Community Garden in 2000

# # #TIMES UP! is a non-profit environmental group that has been using educational outreach and direct action for the last 20 years to promote a more sustainable, less toxic city. 

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