Finn Square Community Garden, Tribeca's Rare Green Space
The rare community garden in the middle of a major through street needs your help.
Leader
Patricia Aakre
Location
Corner of Varick St. and Franklin New York, NY 10013
About the project
In Tribeca where Varick Street meets West Broadway, there is a one-tenth-acre triangle called Finn Square. When the neighborhood was first becoming residential in the late 1970s, it was a stretch of pavement bearing four honey locust trees and little else. In 1998, the city's Greenstreets program remade the space, adding soil and shrubs, and a small group of volunteers became the Friends of Finn Square.
For twenty years, the Friends of Finn Square have planted flowers, cared for the trees and bushes, and picked up trash. We have raised funds and added a low cast-iron fence and a water stanchion and irrigation system. Each fall we plant bulbs for a spring display of daffodils, hyacinths, and brilliant tulips.
The Steps
May 1
Hire an irrigation specialist
Buy topsoil
Continue to pay for monthly rat extermination
May 15
Spread it over gardens
Pay irrigation specialist
June 1
Find volunteers to help weed and maintain gardens over summer
June 1-July 15
When New York City turns on water, follow through with inspection of existing hoses, and repairs when necessary
Through September 15
Continue irrigation inspections through summer
November-December
Plant bulbs for spring flowering
Year-round
Monthly extermination services
Why we‘re doing it
We believe that gardens are things of beauty that add to the world's insufficient store of peacefulness, harmony and optimism.