June 19, 2009 – A community garden that provides food to 129 households in the low-income neighborhood of Woodlawn has been scheduled to be destroyed by the University of Chicago.
In a letter to Jack Spicer, the garden coordinator, the University of Chicago’s Vice President of Community Affairs, Sonya Malunda, said the university would be taking over the land at the end of the gardening season, and using it as a construction staging site.
“The story on it is so ridiculous,” said Alan Davinovitz, a University of Chicago student with one of the garden plots. The seminary used to be in a central location on the University of Chicago’s campus, on University Avenue at 58th Street, but the university purchased the building from the seminary “to move in, of all things the Milton Friedman Center for Economics,” said Davinovitz.
Along with paying the seminary for the existing building, the university agreed to “construct and furnish new facilities to the seminary’s specifications,” according to the seminary Web site. The planned building will be a “green” building, meaning it will be certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design as a sustainable design.
“They’re going to build over the community garden with a ‘green’ building, it’s so absurd,” Davinovitz scoffed.
According to the seminary, the purchase of the original building and the construction of a new one will cost the university $44 million.
The planned Chicago Theological Seminary will not be built on the current site of the garden, it will be on the southeast corner of South Dorchester and East 60th Street, one block north of the garden. However, construction crews will need the garden space for equipment and materials for the building, Malunda said.
In her letter Malunda said that the university was “willing to move the topsoil from the current garden to a new location.” She said that would allow people “to start gardening in 2010 with little-to no-delay.”
However, community gardeners and activists said moving the garden would be disastrous and that moving the topsoil will not be enough to preserve the richness of the soil.
Malunda could not be reached for comment and the university’s spokesman Steve Klohen did not return phone calls.
“Just saying you’re going to move the topsoil would not be sufficient,” said Kitty Conklin, a gardening consultant at the Farmers Market Garden Center. Conklin is not affiliated with the 61st Street Garden, but she said it sounds like “the university is trying to get away with doing less than the minimum.”
According to Conklin and community gardeners, the success of the plan to move the topsoil depends on the new site they are planning for the garden, but the university hasn’t said where it plans to relocate it.
Spicer said that he did not believe the university was serious about moving the topsoil. “That was something they mentioned in the beginning, but I haven’t heard them talk about it since,” he said. He also questioned the practicality of moving the soil.
“It’s not easy, it’s not like a carpet you can roll up and take with you.”
Aaliyah, a woman who goes by a single name, is a Woodlawn resident who has been gardening in the community garden for five years. She tends a small plot of land that allows her to provide food to the senior center her mom lives in.
“Other than my family I feed about five other families,” Aaliyah said. She does not believe that moving the topsoil will be sufficient to save the community garden, and is certain there is a better option for the university.
“If they’re building over there and using this as a staging area, then that means that once they’re done building this land is gone, it’s no good, it’s no use to us. They’re talking about taking the topsoil, yeah you can take the topsoil, but depending on where you put it, its going to be at least a couple more years before we can even garden again. You don’t have another community garden of this magnitude [on the South Side].”
The university, which the Chicago Tribune has called one of the South Side’s biggest landlords, owns several plots of land of similar size in Woodlawn near the community garden, Aaliyah and others are encouraging the university to use those pieces of land before disrupting their garden.
Jamie Kalven, a member of the 61st Street Garden has been active in defending the garden, he says that there is enough empty space on the plot on which they are building the seminary to use for staging. According to Kalven, after the new building is built the garden may be permanently converted into a parking lot.
“If you were properly valuing the garden and the things and people its associated with it would change [the plans],” he said.
“You think about 129 families,” Aaliyah said. “This is not a hobby, this is our food this is our substance supply, and for them to just stage out of here. You’re taking away food from people at a time when they need food.”
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