Between the idling tour buses, next to the hot dog carts, and under the watchful eye of a Starbucks, something is growing in Battery Park. Earlier this morning, students from three schools in lower Manhattan joined New York City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and the folks at the Battery Conservancy in breaking ground on a one-acre farm shaped like park resident Zelda the wild turkey, on the tip of Lower Manhattan.
Speaking to the kids, Benepe praised their efforts to make something of the idle plot of land and listed the many types of vegetables to be grown there (broccoli, carrots, and peas), while noting that the site was once a Dutch garden in 1625. "What will not be grown here that was once grown by settlers," Benepe said, "is tobacco." Considering that Newports are selling for a teeth-gnashing $15, maybe the Commish just stumbled upon an ingenious way to get those teachers their jobs back. Those who can't teach, farm!
Conceived by students at Millennium High School, the farm will include 80 organic vegetable plots that will be cultivated by students and volunteers to be used in school lunches, as well as in local restaurants. Ideally, it will serve as an "outdoor classroom" for folks to develop their green thumb, and allow kids to expand their "taste literacy" (i.e. brainwashing them to like broccoli, which we all know flies in the face of evolution). The farm's perimeter fence is made up of the 5,000 pieces of bamboo used in last summer's Big Bambu installation at the Met, and does bear a passing resemblance to Zelda, especially if you decide to take one of those pleasant helicopter tours.
