Posts from — November 2008

Photo in Greensgrow Gallery. See larger photo and more images here.

By Jon Hurdle
New York Times, May 20, 2008

PHILADELPHIA — Amid the tightly packed row houses of North Philadelphia, a pioneering urban farm is providing fresh local food for a community that often lacks it, and making money in the process.

Greensgrow, a one-acre plot of raised beds and greenhouses on the site of a former steel-galvanizing factory, is turning a profit by selling its own vegetables and herbs as well as a range of produce from local growers, and by running a nursery selling plants and seedlings.

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Still photograph from the Nazi propaganda film, “Der Fuehrer Schenkt den Juden eine Stadt” [The Fuehrer gives the Jews a City]. Theresienstadt inmates working in the SS vegetable gardens. This work brigade was called the Stab Garten and was greatly increased in size for the filming.

“There were gardens, and we worked in them, but they were only to feed the SS. You could be deported (to the death camps) for taking one potato.” Helga Hoskova spent two and a half years at Thereisenstadt.

The SS, seeking to exploit the beautification efforts undertaken at Theresienstadt in preparation for the Red Cross visit of June 23, 1944, decided to produce a film about the ghetto for propaganda use in Germany.

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‘Looking at the UBC Farm’ (Part 1 above)
Video by Linda Flechter and Jennifer Rashleigh
In 2 parts on YouTube

This film looks at urban agriculture and community development at UBC Farm/Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, a 24 hectare area, which is under threat of development. UBC Farm is at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

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Mayor Tom Bradley and actor Eddie Albert tilling soil at dedication of community garden in Reseda, Calif.,
Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1975
Slightly larger photo here.

Garden Project – Mayor Tom Bradley and actor Eddie Albert turn the ground to open the first project in which city property can be used by the public to grow vegetables. This one was on a Department of Water and Power right-of-way under utility lines in Reseda. The mayor said 15-by-15 foot plots at this and future locations can be applied for at City Hall office of the Neighborhood Farm and Garden Project. Albert noted that there are miles of land sitting idle under power lines.

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