http://nypost.com/2013/12/29/c...

How sad.

Awfull

Stinkers...

Aw, man!! Not right.

Greed rules and not common sense.

BonnieGardens said:Greed rules and not common sense.

I'm going to play devils advocate on this issue...

How much of your land do you allow other people to use for gardens? For free?

the article said:Residents say they’ve run the garden since the 1980s.

In many states, using land for a specific purpose for a certain amount of time entitles you to continued rights. I think in Texas it's 30 years. But, I guess one would have to hire an expensive lawyer to fight for those rights. The article also doesn't make clear who owns this land.

Well if they have gardened there since the 80's, they very well could have had rights. Probably did, from the looks of the way it was handled. The city approved the project and then bulldozed it over within a week or so, in the middle of the night, right during the busy holiday season. That was so that no one would have time to get an attorney or fight it or try to assert any rights they had.
Then the bad guys said, oh well you were here illegally anyway. That is strange that since 198-s that tid bit didn't seem to matter and the land was widely accepted by the community as the Community Garden. All of the sudden when someone else wanted it, they started trying to dig up reasons to take it. I bet there was a pay off somewhere because the article says the city voted against it in Sep and that the community board also did not approve the new building.
Makes no difference who had rights to what, this whole situation was handled very badly.

That was my first reaction, too, Rob. Then I went back and re-read the article. Something sounds a bit shady there.

The fact the dozers came in the middle of the night is telling.

You all will probably hate me for this, but if you would read more than just the one article that was offered you would see that the garden had already been 'decommissioned' and a new garden site was made available to the community gardeners; "improvements have been made at the alternate garden site, known as Surfside Garden, on Surf Avenue at 29th Street, including new topsoil and raised beds." (http://amusingthezillion.com/2...) There are plenty more news items on this. Also see: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/s...

The community gardeners knew this was coming but did not like the new site so they didn't move. The law is the law. I have to be on the side of the property owners here and think the city was more than fair in offering the gardeners a different site and making the improvements for them. It isn't every day that someone gives a group the right to use land for free anywhere, never mind that it's in New York where land is scarce and seems more valuable to some. The city did not have to give them any land and I think the gardeners should be thankful.

As far as 'the middle of the night' is concerned - construction in New York can take place all hours of the day or night. Five in the morning is not at all unusual. The crews often work at odd hours to avoid disrupting traffic.

Anyway, this is more a political and legal situation.

Thanks for giving us the whole story, Greene.

Please don't thank me.
All I offered was another side to the story.
The whole story is something each person will have to research on their own if they so chose.

The first link says the same thing as the original article, that the garden was decommissioned just before Christmas.
It goes on to say that even a sculpture was destroyed.
The new site, is smaller, is 5 blocks away which may cause hardship for many, as the site served some older gardeners. The article says the alternate site is known as 'surfside garden" indicating that it is already up and going-being used by another group of people in other words.

The second link explains that the city has previously (1997) taken back land set aside as a community garden, so this isn't the first time the city has reneged on it's commitments. Sounds like the city allows folks to start a community garden in a spot as long as no one has a commercial interest in it and then tosses them out when the money shows up. Very sad. There needs to be a piece of land devoted permanently for the community garden. As robertduval14 pointed out, after all who gets to use land for free, right? A community garden is not like that at all. It is more akin to a public park, a public memorial or a city square. Public land that is available for the public to use. Taxes have paid for more frivolous ventures. The bottom line is still greed. How many theaters does anyone nee?, you can't eat pavement...