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“Plenty Good Room” for Obama Library

February 19, 2015 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

“Plenty Good Room” for Obama Library

By Mary Pattillo
Published February 3, 2015

In the coming weeks, the Chicago City Council and the Chicago Park District will vote on using roughly 20 acres of South Side parkland for the proposed Obama presidential library. There is no good reason to use parkland. There are plenty of reasons not to. And, as the Negro spiritual says, there is “plenty good room” in which to accommodate everybody.

Photo of Washington ParkWashington Park, photo © Lucas Blair

I run in Washington Park. There’s a bridle path where Chicago’s “black cowboys” ride their horses, and where it’s very soft on my knees. I also run in Jackson Park in the Woodlawn community on a beautiful track across the street from Hyde Park Academy High School.

On my runs in Washington Park, I pass the older lady who always yells out “How ya doin’, baaaby!” and the group of older men whose debates about politics and popular culture are almost as vigorous as their walking pace. In the summer, there are softball leagues, South Asians and West Indians playing cricket, and hundreds of barbecues. And, I swear, half the people have on Obama T-shirts!

In Jackson Park, I loop around the Latino men playing soccer, with their families cheering them on, or high school football teams that practice there.

We love that President Barack Obama still calls Chicago his hometown . Obama’s presidential library should be on the South Side — where it would add vitality to blocks and blocks of empty lots. But, instead, the University of Chicago’s proposal to use parkland for the Obama library threatens to take away all of the local, unscripted, everyday life and activity I just described. It will curtail the use of the park through what I call the three Ps: perception, permitting and policing.

My research on urban development in Chicago illustrates that how people perceive things in a community matters for how they use them, or not. In the North Kenwood neighborhood, a community health center has struggled to attract clients with private insurance — who think the facility is only for low-income families. And in the same neighborhood, low-income residents thought the now-shuttered Hyde Park Co-op grocery store was for the more wealthy newcomers. South Siders of all types will surely embrace the Obama library and claim it as their own, but its fancy architecture and perfectly landscaped lawns will create perceptions for some people that they shouldn’t be hanging out nearby, shouldn’t play loud music at the family reunion, shouldn’t wear cutoff shorts, or generally shouldn’t be there doing what people often do in a park.

Photo of Cricket PlayersCricket Players in Washington Park, photo © Lucas Blair

The next step is permitting. A presidential library will add a level of scrutiny regarding the kinds of uses that are granted permits to be in the park. Will the members of the African-American fraternity Omega Psi Phi be able to blast “Atomic Dog,” hop, and bark alongside the Obama library at their fraternity picnic? Will UniverSoul Circus get a permit to set up in the park? It draws thousands of families every autumn, bringing with it smells of cotton candy, popcorn, pyrotechnics and horse manure.

And, the final P — policing. The Obama library will surely have tight security. Will littering, loitering, street vending and disturbing the peace escalate into arrests? Washington Park is already among the Top 10 and Woodlawn among the Top 15 communities in Chicago with the highest imprisonment rates. Zero-tolerance policing in either of these parks will add to the unjust burden black communities already bear for our lock-’em-up policies.

And, finally, it’s just not necessary. According to the City’s Web site, there are over 3.4 million square feet (almost 79 acres) of vacant city-owned land in the Washington Park community area, and over 2.7 million square feet (roughly 63 acres) in Woodlawn, where Jackson Park is located. Of course, all of these lots are not contiguous but anybody who drives through these neighborhoods will know that there is ample space to build a library, and then some. Indeed, the University of Chicago owns an 11-acre vacant lot directly across the street from the Washington Park land it wants to seize. Why take land that is being actively used by parkgoers, instead of building on land not being used for anything?

The Obama presidential library belongs on Chicago’s South Side. And so do the black cowboys, the Latino soccer players, the high school football teams, the woman who calls me “Baaaaby,” and whoever wants to just hang out with a makeshift cooler and a rickety lawn chair.

Luckily, with the abundance of available non-parkland, there is plenty of good room for all of it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Pattillo is a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of two books about Chicago’s South Side: Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class, and Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City.

A version of this post appeared in the Chicago Tribune’s Opinion and Commentary section on Jan 30, 2015.

Filed Under: Architecture, Cultural Landscape Foundation, Cultural properties, Design philosophy, Garden Blogs, GARDEN LARGE, Midwest, Museums, Public Gardens Tagged With: Cultural Landscape Foundation, Public Gardens, Public land, Public Parks

Join us in the Hamptons this weekend?

March 16, 2012 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

Hudson Valley’s Duncan Brine, aka Garden Large,
Speaks in the Hamptons on Sunday, March 18 at 1pm

The Peconic Land Trust announces its third annual lecture series at Bridge Gardens, in Bridgehampton, NY. On March 18 at 1:00pm, Duncan Brine, principal of Garden Large, presents his naturalistic landscape design process, expanding on his recent article in “American Gardener” magazine.

“A naturalistic garden combines a gardener’s needs and desires with nature’s dictates; its design cannot be premeditated because its inherent beauty is inextricably linked to the landscape on which it is created.”

Mr. Brine is an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and the New England Wild Flower Society. Garden Large specializes in native plants and whole property gardens. Visit www.gardenlarge.com, for more about Garden Large, Duncan Brine, and the Brine Garden.

Long Bridge at the Brine Garden, Pawling, NY© gardenlarge.com
The Long Bridge at the Brine Garden, Pawling, NY 

Scott Medbury, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Vincent Simeone, director of Planting Fields Arboretum, and others, are also featured in the speaker series. Reservations are required and the fee is $15 per person. Refreshments will be served following each program.

For reservations and additional dates and details on the speaker series, go to Bridge Gardens on www.PeconicLandTrust.org.

The Peconic Land Trust

The Peconic Land Trust was established in 1983 to conserve Long Island’s working farms and natural lands.  The nonprofit Trust has worked in concert with landowners, local government, partner organizations, and communities to conserve over 10,000 acres in NY, on Long Island. The Trust’s professional staff carries out the necessary research and planning to identify and implement alternatives to development. While working to conserve the productive farms, watersheds, woodlands, and beach front of Long Island, the Trust is also protecting the unique rural heritage and natural resources of the region. The Trust has Stewardship Centers in Southold, Cutchogue, Bridgehampton and Amagansett and its Main Office is in Southampton, NY. The public is invited to enjoy a wide variety of fun and educational activities through the Trust’s “Connections” programs which strive to connect people to the natural lands of Long Island’s East End.

Bridge Gardens

Bridge Gardens was established in 1988 by Harry Neyens and Jim Kilpatric, who designed and installed the gardens over the ensuing 10 years. In 1997, Bridge Gardens Trust was created as a charitable corporation to maintain and preserve the gardens. In 2008, Neyens and Kilpatric donated Bridge Gardens to the Peconic Land Trust. Rick Bogusch, a landscape architect with a long career at Cornell Plantations in Ithaca, NY,  is the garden manager.

Bridge Gardens covers over five acres and consists of an Inner Garden and an Outer Garden. Developed first, the Inner Garden features a large, meticulously-trimmed knot garden surrounded by beds of 180 different culinary, medicinal, ornamental, and textile and dyeing herbs. Overlooking these plantings, the garden house is the manager’s residence/education center. In the Outer Garden, the favorite attraction is a collection of antique and modern roses. Bridge Gardens also contains animal topiaries, a lavender parterre, perennial beds and borders, a water garden, woodland paths, a hidden bamboo room, double hedgerows of privet with viewing ports, and specimen shrubs and trees.

Filed Under: Classes/Tours, Design philosophy, Duncan Brine, East Coast, GARDEN LARGE, Gardens, Hamptons, Images, Landscape Designer, Landscape Designers, Landscape Inspiration, Native Plants, Naturalistic, Nature, Not-for-Profits, Plants, Private Gardens, Public Gardens, Public Lands, Speakers, Structured Naturalism, Sustainability, US Tagged With: Brine Garden, Duncan Brine, Environment, Hudson Valley, Julia Brine, Landscape design, landscape photography, Native Plants, naturalistic landscape design, Nature, Pawling NY, Principles, Public Gardens, Public land, speaker, Sustainabilty, talks, The American Gardener

Duncan Brine to present at Peconic Land Trusts’ Lecture Series – Bridgehampton, NY

February 22, 2012 by Duncan Brine Leave a Comment

  • Peconic Land Trusts Kicks Off Its Third Annual Lecture Series At Bridge Gardens – Bridgehampton, NY – Hamptons.com

    Long Bridge at the Brine Garden, Pawling, NY

    © gardenlarge.com
    • • Sunday, March 18: “Naturalistic Whole Property Design”
      Brine, principal landscape designer of Garden Large, and instructor at the New York Botanical Garden along with the New England Wild Flower Society, will expand upon an article he wrote for the American Horticultural Society’s “American Gardener” while focusing on the six-acre Brine Garden in Pawling, NY.
      Anne Raver featured the garden in the New York Times, and the recent book “Gardens of the Hudson Valley” compares Duncan to Russel Wright of Garrison, NY’s Manitoga.
      Discover how this designer finds inspiration in existing conditions and elicits ideas from the prevailing nature of a place.

Filed Under: Bridge Gardens, Brine Garden, Design philosophy, Design Technique, Duncan Brine, Environment, Hamptons, Images, Julia Brine, Landscape Inspiration, Native Plants, Naturalistic, Nature, Public Lands, Speakers, Structured Naturalism, Sustainability Tagged With: Brine Garden, Duncan Brine, Environment, Hudson Valley, Julia Brine, Landscape design, naturalistic landscape design, Nature, Pawling NY, Principles, Public Gardens, Public land, speaker, Sustainabilty, talks, The American Gardener

Cross-pollinated Connecticut Chestnut Comeback

December 12, 2011 by Duncan Brine Leave a Comment

  • Forest management efforts in Connecticut paying off as American chestnut tree makes a comeback | The Republic

  • via Ct Environmental Headlines

    • Scientists have been working on restoration since the 1930s, and in the last several years, American chestnut specialist Sandy Anagnostakis has been breeding blight-resistant trees by crossing the American species with its Chinese cousin, which carries a resistant gene.

       

      Some 200 of those blight-resistant seedlings were planted on 2.5 acres at Belding in 2009, and while mortality is eventually expected to reach 50 percent due to die-off from natural competition, Seymour said the vast majority of the trees are thriving.

    • Eventually, the native trees will reach maturity and begin cross-pollinating with the newly planted blight-resistant strain, creating seedlings genetically similar to trees native to the site that also carry genes resistant to blight.

Filed Under: Connecticut, endangered species, Enlightening, Environment, Forest management, Native Plants, Northeast, Public Lands, Wildlife Tagged With: Connecticut, Environment, Native Plants, Nature, Public land, Sustainabilty, Wildlife

“Peacefulness and oldness…” | A poignant profile of the adirondacks | NYTimes.com

December 2, 2011 by Duncan Brine Leave a Comment

  • Fearing Climate Change’s Effects on the Adirondacks – NYTimes.com

  • By LISA W. FODERARO
  • A full moon rising over Osgood Pond near Paul Smiths, N.Y. More Photos »
    • Mr. Jenkins, who is the author of the book “Climate Change in the Adirondacks: The Path to Sustainability,” spends much of his time on the water and in the woods, documenting the ecosystem with a notebook and a camera. He thus brings an unusual perspective to the scene. Where a casual observer might behold diversity and continuity, he projects decades into the future and finds absence and loss.

Filed Under: Climate Change, East Coast, Enlightening, Environment, Northeast, Public Lands, Sustainability, The New York Times, Wildlife Tagged With: Adirondacks, climate change, Environment, landscape photography, naturalistic landscape design, Nature, Public land, Sustainabilty, The New York Times, wild, Wildlife

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