Fenway Park “Greens” the Green Monster
One of the most intriguing aspects of urban gardening is its versatility – as long as you’ve got some dirt, some seeds, and some good ideas, the possibilities for green innovation are endless. Practically any space can be transformed into a green haven with the proper amounts of elbow grease and inspiration: including a historic, world-famous ballpark.
Imagine the surprise on visitors’ faces as they stroll into Boston’s Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, only to find thousands of rows of produce filling the stands in lieu of fans. Right above the stadium’s Yawkey Way lies Fenway Farms, a new urban farm situated within the Boston landmark that was installed this past spring by Green City Growers. The vegetables and herbs grown by the diamond are repurposed for the various restaurants owned by the Red Sox, including the Bleacher Bar, the EMC Club, and the Royal Rooters club. The influx of produce has also resulted in some atypical tapes on typical stadium fare; just past the hot dog and pretzel carts, patrols can purchase wraps featuring kale picked earlier that day from Fenway’s own rooftop garden.
Fenway Farms doesn’t just provide fresh food and green space, however. For visitors seated above the verdant rows, it provides a sense of community well-being and serenity, a remedy to the often-overstimulating environs of sports arenas. It also helps to keep the park’s air a little cooler and cleaner.
Fenway Farm’s best quality, however, is its inspirational energy; practically every city across America has a sports stadium that could host a vegetable garden; undertaken in a city like Detroit, a similar project wouldn’t just be a stride towards sustainability: the significant overturn in space would bring the fight to urban food crises and wed tourism and food activism under the same awning. To date, Fenway Farms has produced more than three-thousand pounds of produce– in the form of squash, beans, tomatoes, herbs, and eggplant. The “Green Monster”– aka the popular local name for the thirty-seven foot, two-inch high left field wall at Fenway Park– can now proudly own its title.
