How To Get The Keys To A Community Garden
While community gardens are ostensibly for the community, it can sometimes be hard to catch them when they’re open. Reading the schedule often feels like an algebra problem we missed on the SAT test: “the garden is only open on even dates and only on the second Tuesday of every month and only if the last Sunday falls on the full moon and only if Mercury isn’t in retrograde.”
But on the corner of Atlantic and Hoyt, the Hoyt Street Garden is shaking things up.
Instead of a model where volunteers sign up for random slots at odd hours of the day, the Hoyt Community Garden offers keys to anyone. Literally: anyone. Anyone who’d like to open up the gate simply has to stop by gardening supply store GRDN, where they can pick up a key to unlock the secret corner pocket garden.
Of course, with great power comes great responsibility: the key comes taped to a small piece of paper outlining the Hoyt Street Garden Rules. The first encourages key-holders to use the garden whenever they like, while the rest focus is around making sure you do not exclude anyone from joining you, leaving the gate wide open, and generally maintaining good behavior in the space.
The perfect spot to catch up with a friend, the Hoyt Street Garden let’s you live the momentary fantasy that you own land– green land— in New York City. It’s also a fun way to get to know the area while enjoying the outdoors.
The Hoyt Street Garden is located at Atlantic Avenue and Hoyt Street. GRDN is located across the street at 103 Hoyt Street, Brooklyn, NY.
