The Urban Meadow Community Garden, at the corner of Van Brunt and President in Brooklyn, has everything you'd want in a green space: trees for shade, plenty of grass, flowers for eye candy, beds for plants, and seats for taking in the scenery. Even among the community gardens in the Columbia Waterfront District—and there are several—it is a standout; a well-loved plot, tended by a dedicated cadre of local volunteers. And for six years, the preschoolers and preschool educators of the nearby Elite Minds Montessori Preschool enjoyed relatively unlimited access to the space, in exchange for a flat annual $100 donation to the garden's operating funds. Kids ranging from four months to five years old flopped around on blankets in the garden's grass, or stuck their noses into flowers, or wobbled around on the stage at the center of the garden for the Elite Minds version of graduation with adoring parents and teachers within arm's reach.
But last July, when a class of students from Elite Minds toddled up to the garden, they found that the gates teachers had been walking through for years were, suddenly, locked. At the time, the school was told that an imminent change in garden policy meant that their visiting privileges had been temporarily revoked. For the past eight months, a small group of parents at the preschool have been asking when their children will be allowed back into the space, a garden licensed by the New York City Parks Department's GreenThumb program, which they feel they should never have lost access to in the first place.
According to the Montessori parents, their students were barred without warning. Meanwhile, the Urban Meadow garden coordinators say they'd shut their doors in order to better comply with City policy, while juggling all the other responsibilities that come with stewarding public green space. What it all amounts to is a protracted fight over a tiny space between two groups of neighbors—with a City program caught in the middle.
