Vacant lot transformed into garden near St. John’s Place Family Center

It’s a budding jewel in a crown – Crown Heights, that is.

The Horticulture Society of New York (“The Hort”) and its Green Team have joined forces with The Settlement Housing Fund on July 17 to beautify a vacant lot in Crown Heights.
Members of the Green Team are former Riker’s Island inmates and at-risk youth who have completed a certificate-training program in horticulture. The team partnered with community volunteers to transform an abandoned lot adjacent to St. John’s Place Family Center, 1604 St. John’s Place, into a green garden.
The garden will enable preschoolers at St. John’s Day Care Center to learn about math and science, while encouraging healthy eating habits. The students will maintain the space, and cultivate edible and flower gardens. The land, owned by the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust, will also be available to the community.
“This is located in what is basically a food desert, an area where fresh, healthy and affordable food is hard to come by. Having a garden that will bring both beauty and food developed and maintained by the community is an ideal way to bring a dead space back to fruition,” said George Pisegna, director of horticulture and public programs for The Hort.