The Cherry Street Community Garden
The Cherry Street Community Garden is located on 1431 and 1437 N 23rd Street in Milwaukee's Midtown neighborhood. This garden, originally called the 23rd Street Community Garden, was organized by Sandra Shelton and a group of neighborhood women. According to Ms. Shelton, the idea of a community garden came up when two residential units on this city block were destroyed due to a fire. When the plots became vacant Ms. Shelton and her neighbors cleared the ground for a garden. Since 2011, Rick and Lisa Roszkowski, with support from SET Ministries and the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM), took over the maintenance of this garden. They led local residents, gardeners, and volunteers to create the vibrant Cherry Street Community Garden.
The garden as a complex system How to we understand and describe the Cherry Street Community Garden? The community garden shows the general characteristics of complex systems. We analyzed 5 overlapping and intertwined systems: Spatial, Infrastructural, temporal, ecological, and social. To local residents, this garden is more than a place to grow healthy food. The Cherry Street Garden Club gathers growers and neighbors around the common purpose of growing healthy families and nurturing connected communities. Gardeners take a break from work and chat with each other about their life, history, and culture. They help each other to take care of the garden beds encouraging a sense of communal fellowship. For the neighbors the garden has made this a safer community. Crime has decreased and people are invested in their neighborhood. The garden is a carefully designed landscape organized around work areas, memorial spaces, processional paths, boundaries, and socializing zones. A complex network of infrastructural systems include water lines, electrical outlets, signs, paved surfaces, composting bins, garbage disposal sites, and storage spaces. |
To view the Cherry Street Garden site plan, click on the gallery picture above
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