Hope in Harlem: An NYC Garden's Fight for Survival

The allure of New York City is made up of tall skyscrapers, a fast pace and dazzling bright lights. This is what people dream of when they picture the Big Apple. But “a Big Apple” can’t grow from concrete, it needs greenery. I’m not just speaking in analogies; it’s real life.

Simply Googling the importance of green spaces brings up thousands of academic studies, all supporting greener urban communities. Benefits such as reduced energy usage, healthier minds and bodies and even drops in crime can come from green spaces. So why is it that a community garden in Harlem has been struggling to stay open for over 20 years?

The first time I discovered the Joseph Daniel Wilson Memorial Garden was in 2016. I was living in Harlem and spent a lot of time meeting friends at the many restaurants and bars along Frederick Douglass Boulevard. I was so sure I knew the area like the back of my hand until I turned east on 122nd Street and was stopped in my tracks by the garden.

As I explored the grounds alone, I couldn’t believe the energy. The garden possessed the same nurturing and peaceful qualities that most green spaces do, but there was something else there. This unidentified energy radiated from the ground itself. I left a changed person. Honestly. It made me fall in love with the way New York City surprises you sometimes.

Jump to the present day when I decided to do a story on green spaces; I was determined to return to that garden. I couldn’t remember its location. All I remembered was that it was near the statue honoring Harriet Tubman close to the 125th Street stop on the A.

My search began at that exact spot. I walked eastward on 125th for two blocks, then westward on 124th for two blocks, and so on in this pattern until I was stopped in my tracks once again. That inexplicable energy had endured. Coming back to the garden was like stepping back into the moment I first encountered the space. Except for this time, there was a woman tending the grounds. It was then that Cindy Worley agreed to have lunch with me and tell me the garden’s story.

The Joseph Daniel Wilson Memorial Garden was an unused lot full of trash before Cindy and her husband, Haja, came along. With some help from, as Cindy calls them, “young people,” they began to change the face of what was once a desolate block. Haja recalls three boys who would help in exchange for small stipends, “They would come every day and say, ‘Brother Haj, do you have anything for us to do today?”

As it turns out, experiences like these leave a lasting effect. Cindy shares a story that she had forgotten to tell Haja, “The other day a young man passed the garden, and he’s probably in his twenties or thirties now. He says, “Hey, Cindy.” She laughs and explains that she couldn’t recognize the man, “He turns to his friends and says, “Yeah, she gave us a job when we were kids.”

The Worleys detail the garden’s precarious history while we enjoy a salad with honey mustard dressing and mulberry wine—all made using ingredients found on the premises. The whole time the garden’s mysterious energy brightened the scene. Cindy tells me that in 1996, many gardens received a letter, prompted by Rudy Giuliani’s mayoral administration, saying that they were to make way for “imminent development.” By this time, the community had already become attached to its sacred green space.

Since its first bloom in 1985 children could enjoy an annual Halloween party and they could also take part in the garden’s summer program, The Environment Rangers. More recently, the garden has become a popular venue for nonprofit organizations to host fundraising or awareness events. This community outreach is all in addition to the tremendous amount of beauty it bestows upon the block.

Trees burst out of the gate that guards the garden; they act as proof of the ethereal other dimension contained within. Rays of sunshine flash through the swaying tree branches in a pattern reminiscent of rain. The family of cats that lives here stir from their scattered napping spots when they hear wandering footsteps or a cluck from the chicken coop on the grounds.

Just over a tiny bridge is the herb garden brimming with enough cilantro, chard, parsley and basil to put your local supermarket to shame. The center of the garden features two tables, a shed and a tree-side bench, all perfect for taking a moment to drink in the atmosphere. Above that bench, are signs that read “Dream,” “Believe,” and “Inspire,” a three-word summary of precisely what the Worleys have done here.

After their garden became a target of the city, the Worleys began to organize with gardeners downtown. Cindy has kept an album of any piece of paper related to saving the garden. She shows me an article from the New York Times, (Houses Before Gardens, The City Decides: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/09/garden/houses-before-gardens-the-city-decides.html) and a front-page feature in the New York Daily News.

“We got in touch with the media and BAI said, ‘Everybody in New York City go to 122nd Street,’” Cindy tells me proudly, “so the street was just filled with people.” The community’s clear message was disregarded by a mayor who, at the time, was struggling to revamp inner-city areas. “Giuliani called us hippies and communists and everything he could think of,” says Haja.

One morning Cindy awoke to the sound of bulldozers outside. “When they moved on this garden it was just heartbreaking. Cindy came out and she yelled at them,” Haja tells me, “it was a primordial scream.” The temporary restraining order the couple applied for was still processing, but Cindy yelled that she had one anyway, and the bulldozers stopped; for a time.

Once it was discovered that there was no restraining order, four of the eight lots the garden was built upon were destroyed. Half of the Joseph Daniel Wilson Memorial Garden was now gone. Cindy shares the impact of that moment, “Whenever I see a bulldozer anywhere, that is traumatic.” “It was like having a child or something,” Haja explains, “you put your blood and your sweat into something and then somebody comes and takes it away from you at a whim.”

Following the community’s loss, the Worleys continued to use what remained of the garden as a haven for the residents who defended its grounds. The garden had taken a hit, but it wasn’t backing down. It wasn’t long before the garden was in jeopardy again. In 1999 a man showed up claiming to be the owner of two of the garden’s four surviving lots.

Years ago he bought the land at a city auction for a remarkable $300 and was named the titular owner of two noncontiguous lots. The lots were never claimed and taxes were never paid, which led to a foreclosure notice from the city. Now the titular owner wanted to reclaim his land, which would destroy the two unconnected lots and cut the garden in half, again.

An agreement could not be reached despite the many deals offered to buy the lots. Once the issue hit the acting Manhattan Borough President’s desk, the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) began. ULURP is a lengthy process for reviewing land use. “Fast forward to 2019 the ULURP has been completed and approved.” I think Cindy downplays the relief that saying that sentence gives her. The deal ends in the titular owner receiving an undisclosed sum of money which will be partially paid for by the garden’s fundraising efforts.

If you ask whether the garden is finally safe Cindy will give you the same answer she gives everyone, “It’s as permanent as any garden can be.” Despite all they’ve accomplished, the Worleys don’t take the garden’s recent triumph for granted. “We still keep one eye open,” Haja reassures me, “because this is New York and real estate is prime.”

Should the need to defend the garden arise again the Worleys have been preparing some “young people” to take up the cause. Project Harmony is the couple’s nonprofit neighborhood organization that oversees the garden. “We have some people that are part of our board that we’ve encouraged to keep this going,” Haja states, “we feel that they are good and trustworthy.”

There is no doubt in my mind that these proteges had felt the same mysterious energy I did on my first day in the garden. And it was not until I reached the end of writing this article that I finally understood that energy. Thanks to the community’s courage in the face of capitalistic urbanization, the garden possesses a gritty New York fighting spirit. A modest garden beat the system. David faced Goliath and had lived to tell the tale. Thanks to a couple of “hippies and communists” this garden is the city’s ultimate underdog story. And any New Yorker worth their salt knows that the Big Apple’s flashing lights pale in comparison to a garden that stuck it to The Man.