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# 20: The Gardens of Gowanus
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By Maura Madden
Oh, what a beautiful morning. The kind of morning they write songs about - shining sun and sky of blue. I love Brooklyn in the springtime, how about you? I left my house with the intention of making my way to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a few hours of nurturing myself with nature. Given the swellness of the spring day, I wanted to get an eyeful of cherry blossom trees. But my jaunty step was not completely carefree. There had been drama betwixt my housemate and I, drama that I was scurrying from as I made my way to the park of parks. But as I turned the corner on my street, I saw her. My housemate was trailing me, with that tentative kind of step that marks someone who is trailing not for sleuthing but for catching up to someone you were in an argument with - big motions that indicate you are not trying to disturb the objet d'trail, but you need to talk. She wanted to end the drama, so we stopped on the corner and engaged in conversation. As we made amends, we both noticed something out of the corner of our collective eye. There on the next block was a small army of cleaner-uppers*, with brooms and shovels and garbage bags. They were cleaning up the dead end of our street. I had strolled down this cul de sac before, and noticed the patches of urban garden and the benches with the view of the Gowanus Canal. I wanted to be the keeper of the garden, but didn't know whose permission to ask. And the street was covered in filth and debris, which made the garden considerably less inviting. But here, on this Sunday morning worthy of song, people had formed a clean team. So we settled our differences and decided to offer our aid.
An unfriendly woman told us to go to the "command center" one block over, where we could find gloves and brooms and shovels. She didn't seem to think we were serious about cleaning up, but we were out to prove her wrong. The command center was a table where two ladies stood, ready to hand out gloves or juice boxes to interested parties. "We're interested in helping clean up Degraw Street," I said, smiling brightly, now thinking we would need to convince them of our intentions. But friendliness was not something they lacked.
"Great," both women trilled, handing us pairs of gloves. "Do you want a sandwich? We have a huge hero sandwich over there; I don't know if you saw it. We've got juices and water, too, so help yourself. Or maybe you'd like a cookie. But if you're hungry, you should have some of that sandwich."
"Oh, we are not hungry, but thanks. We'll just take the gloves and a broom and shovel."
"Okay, well, there's a lot of that hero sandwich left, so if youÕre hungry you should really have some."
A huge bald guy wearing a black polo shirt that said "vigilante" in the monogram space approached us. "Does anyone want some of that hero sandwich, 'cause weÕre about to put it away." We politely declined the popular sandwich, but said yes to the free "Vigilante" mugs, an in-house advertisement for their friendly plumbing and air-conditioning services. We don't have an air-conditioner, but if we did, we'd use Vigilante. And believe me, come August we're going to wish we needed Vigilante.
Before we walked off to clean, I decided to gush about loving my neighborhood and feeling so lucky to have walked out and noticed the clean up efforts. I mentioned my love of the little patched of garden at the end of our street. "Well, we're looking for someone to adopt the gardens," she said, looking in my direction. It was too good to be true.Ê
"I'll adopt it," I volunteered.
"Great," she replied. And that was that. I got the garden. It would be mine to tend. Wow, isn't life grand? So off we went to clean the mean street, now really my mean street, taking our broom and shovel to struggling patches of grass, clearing them of debris. We met some of the neighbors. The gals seemed to be at the other end of the street, doing the planting and hosing down the walkways. Our territory was occupied by guys in their late fifties sweeping the shit out of the street. Literally. My housemate was taking a broom to a particularly bad patch of rubbish when one of them walked by. Her valiant efforts had already yielded many abject items, including numerous petrified pieces of the aforementioned shit.
"Hey!" he cried, with an intonation that takes the place of a thumbs-up, "You attacked doo-doo city!"
I love clean-up days. We filled bag upon bag with broken glass and fecal matter and shreds of old paint. The street still looked worn-in and cozy, but now it had the added appeal of not being covered in treacherous rubbish. When we had filled the last bag with garbage, we brought our equipment back to the lady in charge. A hipster riding by on his bike hollered at us. "Is this a beautification project?"
"Yup," we replied. It surely is.Ê
*The term "cleaner-upper" finds its origin in a comment made by one of the little boys I baby-sit for, who once described what he wants to be when he grows up as: "A doctor, a mechanic, a cleaner-upper and a junkyard dog." I'm right there with ya, buddy. Except for the doctor bit. Being exposed to medical journals on a daily basis makes one figure out pretty fast if you are the squeamish type or the doctor type. I am not the doctor type, trust me. |
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