Most of New York's community gardens were created by working class residents in struggling neighborhoods where criminal landlords would burn down buildings to collect insurance money, vacant lots were allowed to become hazardous dump sites, city services were severely cut, and city administrations built incinerators, power plants, dumps and highways.

Despite the success in the spring of 1999, when more than one hundred community gardens were rescued from the auction block, over five hundred are still threatened.

Vibrant community gardens in the South Bronx combat the highest incidence of asthma in the United States, while community gardens in Brooklyn provide some of the only open spaces in the borough that has the least amount of green space in the city. These tiny green living spaces are the start of a revolution where land has been reclaimed with no heroic assumptions.

Community gardeners have freed the land from its manmade confinement, pushed away the danger, crime and other destructive elements to create a place for residents of all ages to relax, play, and socialize.
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