NYLCVEF Looks Back: City of Water Day at the James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center

By Kari White

New York City has a tense relationship with water. The videos that flooded social media of water rushing into the 1 train during a severe thunderstorm a few weeks ago prove that. Built into a harbor, much of city life takes place on the water’s edge. Yet, that water, like the city’s wild spaces, faces many threats. Chief among them is apathy. 

The James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center (JBOLC) is determined to change that. According to Ray Pultinas, a former English teacher and JBOLC’s founder, the center aims to “strive for inquiry and project-based solutions at the juncture of food, environmental and social justice.” They do this through the management of Meg’s Garden, the Edible Food Forest, and a weekly farmer’s market that runs from mid-June through October. 

Last month, the New York League of Conservation Voter’s Education Fund (NYLCVEF) had the privilege of attending one of these farmer’s markets. Located on the corner of Goulden and Sedgwick Avenues lies what appears to be a tangle of weeds: Small, scrubby trees grow in tight groups, obscuring the chainlink fence that rises out of the six-foot tall milkweed and fern-like asparagus. Only the picnic benches, gardening bench, and occasional signs betray the humans behind the plants.  

Locals have complained about the garden’s unkempt appearance. JBOLC, however, insists that every plant has its place in the garden — regardless of their appearance. 

The proof of that statement lies in the buzzing, fluttering wildlife that abounds in the small garden. On a corner where barren, green lawn reigns, crickets chirp, butterflies hop from flower to flower, and catbirds sing from the lichen-spotted branches of small fruit trees where little hands harvest almost-ripe apples. These 

Not only is this garden an oasis of green chaos in the midst of an urban space, it also serves as a locus of community. It is, as JBOLC’s website describes it, “a nexus for social, environmental and food justice.” During the Saturday farmer’s market, children ran around barefoot, a little girl performed her favorite nursery rhymes, and the farmer’s market vendor even took a break to play the drums.

Because it was the City of Water Day, JBOLC used the market to honor the recent daylighting of Tibbetts Brook. The creek was diverted into the sewer-system in 1912, pouring 2.1 billion gallons of water into the city’s sewer system every year since. Pultinas doesn’t mention the impact that daylighting this stream would have on the city’s water infrastructure, but rather highlight’s the creek’s right to exist. “JBOLC is an environmental justice organization that serves a beyond-human community,” says Pultinas. 

With a chalk drawing of the city and its waterways, JBOLC folded their celebration of the stream’s liberation into their typical Saturday festivities. 

At two pm, the community gathered together at a picnic table to pass around pitchers of brightly colored tea made from herbs grown right there in Meg’s Garden. This weekly tradition epitomizes the center’s goal of creating community through environmental and food justice. 

The center does not hit its visitors over the head with the importance of their work — and, in a borough where, according to CBS, “almost 20 neighborhoods have upwards of 15 bodegas to every supermarket,” their work is important. Rather, JBOLC emphasizes the joy of gardening, of fresh produce and of friendships. 

Apathy poses one of the greatest challenges to environmental justice, and JBOLC is not shying away from the fight. The center’s relentless optimism and focus on community-building takes on apathy directly.