In late 2011, residents in the Franklin Avenue section of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a predominantly black and Caribbean neighborhood, received notice that their community garden was being torn down. The property owner, after decades of abandonment, was selling the land. Long-standing residents who turned the blight into a community space for organizing, sharing culture, and growing produce in a neighborhood lacking healthy foods, now had one week to remove their belongings. Years after hard work and beautification, the land was stripped away as it reached what realtors claimed was its full “market value” worthy of attraction and investment. (Four years later, the lot remains empty and fenced off).
