took many forms and were allowed to evolve fully because there was no money or interest from either government or the private sector to interfere. Even the country’s community-garden movement had one of its earliest starts in the most down-and-out neighborhoods of this city. The Green Guerillas tore down barbed-wire fences, cleaned up garbage, and cultivated abandoned lots first on the Lower East Side but eventually all over the city and beyond. The term guerilla gardening was born here. This early effort matured into a revival of urban agriculture in low-income neighborhoods around the city.
The Union Square Greenmarket overcame official resistance and the cynicism of the experts to get off the ground in 1976, part of a then small national revival of farmers’ markets nationwide that is now a big-time national success. On the West Coast, Alice Waters had opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, buying from a network of local farmers and ranchers dedicated to sustainable agriculture and beginning a slowly contagious national trend championing locally grown food, small farms, and fresh ingredients. Similarly, new restaurants opened around Union Square, taking advantage of the immediate access to fresh products from regional farmers. The ripple effects were widespread. Now Greenmarkets blanket the city, giving many low-income communities access to fresh, healthy food direct from farmers.
1.4 The necklace I never take off. Sandra Morris.
All of this was part of the renewal process, one that took root in communities across the country, not just New York. One charismatic leader did not make these things happen. Nothing happened quickly. This bottom-up change came out of the city’s culture of confrontation, contention, and caring. More important, none of this positive change was about stadia, convention centers, big clearance projects, tourist attractions, or other officially embraced baubles encased in rejuvenation rhetoric.
Preservation was the most visible of the bellwether issues indicating good things to come. For this reason, the next chapter recalls early landmark history to understand preservation as a framework for change. Reporting on landmark preservation revealed my eventual passionate commitment to the issue.
When New York seemed to hit bottom and outsiders derided everything about it, New Yorkers rose up in defense, forming block associations, planting trees and flower boxes, organizing house tours, finding many ways to demonstrate their loyalty. In response to external hostility—particularly the “City Drop Dead” headline—the “I Love New York” campaign took hold. I had always been one of those New York boosters and wrote a little feature story on the things one could buy to flaunt one’s New York chauvinism. Not much was available, but I still have and regularly wear the gold necklace I found at B. Altman’s with the words “I Love New York.” That was all I could find for the story. The “Big Apple” and “I Love New York” campaigns came later, an outgrowth of New Yorkers’ shared chauvinism.
Nationally, too, not everything was negative. In September 1975, a National Neighborhood Conservation Conference was held in New York City. Grassroots urban preservation and historic neighborhood repopulation efforts were under way in forty-five cities, including New York. Most historic preservation efforts started in response to the urban renewal clearance projects in each city. Representatives from those efforts came together in New York to compare “war stories” and learn from one another.
The Bicentennial celebration in 1976 unleashed a new interest and pride in ethnic roots and national history, so much of which is urban based. The historic preservation movement grew in popularity as the fight to save Grand Central Terminal scored a dynamic victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978. The appreciation of the authentic city, the fight to protect neighborhoods targeted for “renewal,” and the
The Union Square Greenmarket overcame official resistance and the cynicism of the experts to get off the ground in 1976, part of a then small national revival of farmers’ markets nationwide that is now a big-time national success. On the West Coast, Alice Waters had opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, buying from a network of local farmers and ranchers dedicated to sustainable agriculture and beginning a slowly contagious national trend championing locally grown food, small farms, and fresh ingredients. Similarly, new restaurants opened around Union Square, taking advantage of the immediate access to fresh products from regional farmers. The ripple effects were widespread. Now Greenmarkets blanket the city, giving many low-income communities access to fresh, healthy food direct from farmers.
1.4 The necklace I never take off. Sandra Morris.
All of this was part of the renewal process, one that took root in communities across the country, not just New York. One charismatic leader did not make these things happen. Nothing happened quickly. This bottom-up change came out of the city’s culture of confrontation, contention, and caring. More important, none of this positive change was about stadia, convention centers, big clearance projects, tourist attractions, or other officially embraced baubles encased in rejuvenation rhetoric.
Preservation was the most visible of the bellwether issues indicating good things to come. For this reason, the next chapter recalls early landmark history to understand preservation as a framework for change. Reporting on landmark preservation revealed my eventual passionate commitment to the issue.
When New York seemed to hit bottom and outsiders derided everything about it, New Yorkers rose up in defense, forming block associations, planting trees and flower boxes, organizing house tours, finding many ways to demonstrate their loyalty. In response to external hostility—particularly the “City Drop Dead” headline—the “I Love New York” campaign took hold. I had always been one of those New York boosters and wrote a little feature story on the things one could buy to flaunt one’s New York chauvinism. Not much was available, but I still have and regularly wear the gold necklace I found at B. Altman’s with the words “I Love New York.” That was all I could find for the story. The “Big Apple” and “I Love New York” campaigns came later, an outgrowth of New Yorkers’ shared chauvinism.
Nationally, too, not everything was negative. In September 1975, a National Neighborhood Conservation Conference was held in New York City. Grassroots urban preservation and historic neighborhood repopulation efforts were under way in forty-five cities, including New York. Most historic preservation efforts started in response to the urban renewal clearance projects in each city. Representatives from those efforts came together in New York to compare “war stories” and learn from one another.
The Bicentennial celebration in 1976 unleashed a new interest and pride in ethnic roots and national history, so much of which is urban based. The historic preservation movement grew in popularity as the fight to save Grand Central Terminal scored a dynamic victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978. The appreciation of the authentic city, the fight to protect neighborhoods targeted for “renewal,” and the
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