Development Uproots Urban Gardeners
They call this place Esperanza--Spanish for “hope.”
Here, a garment worker tends his stalks of corn, dreaming of his old farm in Mexico.
A retired attorney picks fragrant shoots of rosemary to use for dinner.
A teacher weeds at dusk, turning over the soil as the hum of the city fades with nightfall.
They work the land side by side. They fight the same weeds. They celebrate harvests together. And these days, they are sadly gathering in the winter crop, knowing it will be the last.
Esperanza is a community garden that took root on a small lot in downtown Los Angeles, a little patch of green beneath a cluster of towering office buildings that press up against the sky. Roses, strawberries, chiles and sugar cane sprout in a field that used to be littered with broken cement and rubble. Birds and butterflies dance between the bushes and branches.
But on Feb. 15 the gardeners are supposed to leave, making way for affordable family housing that is to be built in the summer or fall.
They always knew their piece of green space at Olympic Boulevard and Hope Street would not last. In 1997, when the city Community Redevelopment Agency awarded a grant to artist Adam Leventhal to create a community art project, the agency warned that the land could only be used temporarily.
It’s hard to leave the bushy artichoke plants, the raspberry vines that creep up over the gazebo, the tender fruit trees just starting to bear apples and peaches and pears.
For many, tilling this soil is the only respite from the hard edges of modern life.
For others, the fresh corn and tomatoes help sustain their families.
For everyone, the garden is a magical place, a site where people who might never meet interact and swap gardening tips and share food and land. Why tear up a vibrant piece of social fabric, they ask, when it’s so hard to create one in this city?
“It is really neat to be here,” said Erika Sukstorf, 38, a substitute teacher who lives in Pasadena. “I didn’t anticipate the depth of the connection I would feel with the people here, the richness of the experience.”
Like many of the 30-odd gardeners who signed up to work small plots at Esperanza, Sukstorf learned about the project as she was driving by the empty lot two years ago on her way to the Central Library and saw a sign that read “Community Garden.”
“I literally screeched on my brakes,” she said. “It was exactly what I needed to do. I wanted to grow tomatoes that tasted like tomatoes. I just needed to put my hands in the dirt.”
The garden was the brainchild of Leventhal, a Los Angeles artist who received a $25,000 grant to create artwork that would improve the downtown area.
He decided that instead of installing a piece of public art, he would create a place where people could simply come together.
“I consider it an oasis,” he said.
The novice gardeners include a 93-year-old woman who takes the bus from her Bunker Hill apartment, garment workers who live in the nearby apartment buildings, professionals who work in the glossy downtown high-rises.
“You have folks renting at $1,200 a month working side by side with people barely living off of minimum wage,” said Bruce Saito, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, which helps administer Esperanza and other community gardens around the city.
For $25 a year, the gardeners got a piece of land, water and access to tools.
Little by little, the garden bloomed. The first season bore a bumper crop of tomatoes. Then came watermelons, squash and pumpkins. And cactus, wildflowers and a small fruit orchard.
“People walk by and they can’t believe we’ve made something so wonderful in the middle of nothing,” said Aira Leaver, a Pico-Union resident who grows Swiss chard and arugula. “We’ve worked so hard. We’re just like a family.”
Manuela Silva, who tends a plot full of chiles, tomatoes and cilantro, said: “In this group, we don’t speak the same language, but we all get along.”
During a break in last winter’s storms, the gardeners hurried down to Esperanza to mop up the muddy mess and save the waterlogged plants.
In better weather, they hosted barbecues and potlucks under the garden’s gazebo, a metal sculpture Leventhal created. They feasted on their bounty, enjoying plates heaped high with food, as children raced up and down the narrow garden paths.
Warren and Nancy Brakensiek, some of the first members to join the garden, live a block away in a 15th-floor condominium with a breathtaking view. The retired attorney and accountant often walk over in the evening to gather spinach, fava beans and herbs for dinner.
“It’s just mentally soothing to get your hands dirty,” said Warren Brakensiek. “You can come home from whatever you’ve been doing during the day, and digging and watering has a wonderful beneficial effect.”
He often exchanges edibles with factory worker Juan Santos, who grows tall bushes of fresh oregano.
“There are no strangers here,” Santos said.
Mauricio Alvarado, who started working the soil as a 8-year-old in a small pueblo in Guerrero, Mexico, is one of the most diligent gardeners. Every day after his shift at a garment factory, he comes to Esperanza and tends his plot of corn, onions and tomatoes, taking food home to his wife and six children.
Back in Guerrero, his family plowed their large farm with teams of horses. Here his plot is small, so he helps the others. He showed Erika Sukstorf how to put down compost and helped clear her weeds.
“Seeing him take charge of the land and dig in is inspiring,” Sukstorf said.
Last week, the gardeners sat glumly on hay bales under the gazebo, discussing the end of Esperanza. They were hoping to have a few more years of planting, but the redevelopment agency told them it needs the space and could not find another plot to relocate the garden.
The gardeners agreed to look for a new site and try to move all the plants to another home--if they can find one. They decided to have one last big party at Esperanza.
The group gave the Gardener of the Year award to Alvarado, who reddened and nodded his thanks.
“Mauricio was such an extraordinary gardener,” Sukstorf said. “He infused the garden with such a great level of energy.”
She turned to him.
“It’s always very comforting to find you here,” she said.
He paused, understanding her tone, if not her words.
“It’s too bad I can’t speak English to express my thanks to you,” he said in Spanish.
Leventhal translated, and Sukstorf smiled gratefully.
Alvarado nodded. “Even if we can’t communicate,” he said, “we all understand each other.”
