The 5th Street Slope Childrens Garden recently celebrated its renovation with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, September 12th. This newly renovated garden, located at 626-27 East 5th Street (between Aves. B & C) on the Lower East Side, was made possible with lead funding from The Walt Disney Company.
Additional contributors include: The Evan Frankel Foundation, Independence Community Foundation, Christopher Elliman, Jewish Communal Fund, Barbara Moses and Matthew Grayson, Susan Korrick and Thomas Hecht, and other individuals.
In-kind contributions were also made from the New York City Parks and Recreations GreenThumb program. Architects Judy Oh and Thomas Kosbau (who provided pro-bono design services for the site), building superintendents, sanitation workers, community gardeners, Disney corporate VoluntEARS, public school teachers, parents, and children all collaborated with CENYC to upgrade the site.
In a time when so much of our neighborhood has been bulldozed by the forces of gentrification, the Council on the Environment has helped us, Lower East Side community gardeners, realize a rare dream: a public space designed by us, developed by us and one that will be used by us, said Roberta Silver, board member and long-time area resident.
Thanks to the help of two generous architects, we finally have a kind of oasis, where families from so many different cultures can come and mingle and get along peacefully in a beautiful environment, said Muffy Perez, one of the Slopes founding members.
Architect Thomas Kosbau concurred, We were thrilled to help the community in designing this space. It was the vision, ideas and hard work of the CENYC and the 5th Slope Garden Community that brought this project together.
Bernadette Longford, Manager, NY Community Relations, Disney Worldwide Outreach, added For the hundreds of Disney volunteers from our ABC, ESPN & Disney businesses in New York, this was truly a labor of love and a wonderful opportunity to spread more of the Disney magic to the local community.
For more information about this or any other community garden, please call 212-788-7923 or email us.