The Oil Drum: Local

Today was a good day for local produce and community development. The new greenmarket at St. Stephen's church brought together all the local elected officials in including Councilmember Jessica Lappin and Borough President Scott Stringer as well as the Father Angelo of St. Stephen (pictured above) and many folks from the local community board.

The Upper Green Side has a quick post about it up. It was great to see so many people talking, sharing recipes, bringing their dogs and children with them to shop.

And the crowds were bigger than expected because of the big outreach effort we did over the past two weeks.

But now with the launch of The UPPER GREEN SIDE website, I will have separate homes for these two efforts. Many thanks to TOD reader Damek for all his hard work on setting this up.

PS6 will remain behind bars on Saturdays

Disappointing news broke in New York Magazine this morning about the greenmarket at PS 6 that was approved by Community Board 8 last month. It seems that the Council on the Environment formally withdrew the large PS 6 location for a new greenmarket. While the details are sketchy right now, from what I have been able to gather, Eli Zabar and the residents of the adjacent buildings to PS 6 hired lawyers and threatened to picket the greenmarket location if they started one there. As ridiculous as that seems, this is local politics on the Upper East Side:

The revolt started a few weeks ago, when members of Community Board 8 voted yes. Locals, along with fancy-grocery guy Eli Zabar, staged on-street protests against potential noise (from trucks) and sanitation (from scraps of leftover food).

As someone who has shopped and dined at Eli's in the past, I can say that I will never shop there again and I encourage everyone else to boycott him now that he has bullied the greenmarkets folks out of his domain. As for the residents across from PS 6 on East 82nd between Madison and Park, all I can say is that you have done your neighborhood a major disservice.

I am in the beginning steps of putting together a local urban environmental action group for my neighborhood to start putting words into actions. I'm going to start applying for some grants to get this off the ground. Eventually, we will try to go for full non-profit status, but in the meantime, just getting a solid group of people together will be good.

Anyone who lives in the general area of the Upper East Side is invited to sign-up. I already have 22 registered members and I am hoping to get up to 100 over the next couple of months. Please send this to anyone you know in the area.

I'm still working on the mission statement, but here's my first attempt:

"Helping make the Upper East Side more environmental sustainable by bringing together a community of neighbors interested in: Community Supported Agriculture, Pedestrian-Biking-Mass Transit improvements, Energy efficiency / Renewable energy, Recycling/Waste reduction, and other ways of reducing our community's negative impact on the environment."

Well, that dream just got one step closer to becoming a reality tonight: The Streetfair committee of Community Board 8 voted in favor of both locations - PS 6 (82nd bet Madison & Park) AND St. Stephen's church (82nd bet 1st & York).

It was like a scene from Woody Allen movie about local democracy on the UES: Angry co-op boards, Park Avenue socialites, PTA moms, local food celebrity, politicians...if only I wrote screenplays!

Imagine instead of eating a Pizza (my favorite food), you were to separate the ingredients and eat them one at a time - first the bread, then the cheese, the sauce and finally the toppings. It wouldn't be the same right? It would be boring to eat and take a lot more time to do. That's what happens in the Suburbs - residential all in one spot, shopping in another, restaurants somewhere else, work off over the horizon...but nothing co-located. A city is supposed to be the opposite - encouraging the mixing of uses to bring all these ingredients together and combining them in different ways to create unique flavors and textures.

Why do I bring this up now?

Food is a $20 billion market in NYC. Today, the NY Times today showcases how Union Square has become a food paradise, with a Wholefoods, great restaurants and a new Trader Joe's, largely because of the enormous greenmarket located there. Instead of allowing a race to the bottom on price, it raised the level of competition, established a good minimum standard for quality food in the area and people flocked to the area from other places. I know many people in my neighborhood who travel by train all the way down there just to get good quality food at reasonable prices.

Here are the two sites under consideration by the Community Board:

P.S. 6 - Schoolyard on the 82nd Street side, b Mad/Park, Every Saturday, July 1, 2006- November 18, 2006

St. Stephen of Hungary Parish - 82nd Street, b 1/York, Every Sunday, July 2, 2006-November 19, 2006

Jessica Lappin, the local Councilmember deserves a lot of credit for helping make this happen, including getting the priest at St. Stephen's to sign a letter endorsing the idea.

BUT, this is not yet in the bag. Despite the fact that almost every other NYC neighborhood has a greenmarket, there is one person who might try to thwart this. Who's against a greenmarket? Eli Zabar, who was not only responsible for removing the one at All Souls Church, but also thwarted past attempts to install one at Carl Schurz Park, 86th and Fifth Ave. If he succeeds in stopping either of these, it will be a loss to the community and he and his stores should be shunned for it.

Afterward we had lunch and discussed our experience. Trying to get people's attention is quite a demanding task. A lot of people are totally apathetic, and either don't look at you, or look right through you. This experience with the average person was eye-opening. Our toughest enemy in creating a more sustainable world is not the cornucopians like John Tierney, but rather the pervasive apathy and cynicism in our post-modern society. And in particular, I'd like to call out my own demographic - Caucasian men and women between 20-35 years old (with an ipod in their ear and a latte in their hand). If we don't try to create change now for the world we will inherit, who will?

Over the last week I have given out over 600 copies of my little flyer about both issues, asking people to either come to the community board meeting or send them an email in support of both ideas. I have received a wonderful response from most people and now have about 5 volunteers signed up for continuing the flyer effort.

Through this process I am gaining invaluable contacts and allies in local government and the local food / biking community. I hope I will eventually become a leader on environmental issues in my area.

So how did I get to this point?