Role: BID Services Director, Deputy Director, Interim Executive Director
Myrtle Avenue Business Improvement District
Never have I ever been mistaken for a plant person. Don't get me wrong, I love nature and green spaces, but a green thumb I was not...until I planted over 500 daffodils in Myrtle Avenue Plaza.
The benefits of green spaces are many. From providing beautification and shade to helping the environment and providing physical and mental health benefits, green spaces should be experienced equitably and immediately within neighborhoods and communities.
Through my roles as BID Services Director to Interim Executive Director, I kept the district healthy and beautiful by always working to keep our 100 tree pits planted and healthy, while looking for opportunities to create a more sustainable environment. Continually seeking opportunities to improve our horticulture initiatives enabled me to secure $30k in grant funding and stretching those dollars by partnering with organizations, like the Horticulture Society of New York, and the Daffodil Project that contributed to our streetscape efforts.
Working with the Hort, anywhere from 60 - 70 of the 100+ tree pits and planters are filled with different types of annuals, with planting taking place in late Spring and early Fall. Watering is a big part of the maintenance of these pits and by looking at different watering vendors each year, I was able to save 70% on watering costs and worked with vendors that helped extend the life of our plants, helping us to cut back on the cost of new plants in the Fall.
Typically Spring annuals would be replaced with Fall annuals creating two planting seasons...and two sets of costs. By working with a new watering vendor I found the plants were thriving into the later months, meaning we could almost eliminate the Fall planting cost. Going one step further, we worked to find ways to create a more sustainable and native environment by creating a pilot program where 15 of the pits were planted with perennials (above). As these plants continue to grow and acclimate, the entire avenue will hopefully be planted, section by section, with perennials that will live in place year round and bloom at different intervals throughout the season bringing continued vibrancy to the streetscape.
Never one to miss out on free resources for the avenue, I first signed up to get 500+ free daffodil bulbs through New Yorkers for Parks Daffodil Project and planted the bulbs, with the help of volunteers, in a planter in the plaza. They bloomed just as the pandemic was taking shape and New York was turning into the epicenter. Not being able to see these daffodils bloom in person because of the stay at home order was the first time the deep severity of the pandemic hit me. To not be able to go out to my district and check in on my spaces crushed me. As we emerged out of the pandemic I kept getting free daffodil bulbs and finding new places to plant them like here in Person's Square. Dale, a favorite of mine on the Block By Block team and an avid gardener in his personal life, helped me plant over 800 daffodil bulbs and took great joy in seeing them fill the space with yellow blooms.
New York City's Parks and Recreation department manages all trees in the city and I worked with them to make sure new trees were planted and unhealthy ones removed. Flush with grant funds and working with Urban Arborists, we were able to plant a few new trees (above) in strategic parts of the district. I enrolled in Trees New York Citizen Pruner Course to learn how to properly care for our new and established trees. Just call me Plant Mom!
Each of the tree pits is equipped with a unique and individual tree guard that protects the tree and the plants. For many years the guards had labels that described the plants or the artist that made the guard. The time had come for new tree guard labels and I seized the opportunity to create a new placemaking moment. A culturally diverse community, I designed the labels to say "Welcome" in the many different languages spoken on Myrtle, as sign of respect and hospitality to the many amazing neighbors that make Myrtle Avenue a proud and deeply rooted place to call home.
By designing the tree guard labels to match the district banners (seen top left in this image) I was able to create consistent branding across our horticulture and infrastructure initiatives. Although many people knew about the Myrtle Avenue BID, there were times when people weren't familiar with the organizations work. A quick and easy way to bridge that gap was to point to the banners and tree guards and say, "That's us! We look after the neighborhood!" and almost immediately the connection was made between the BID as an organization, the work that was being done, and the people that made it happen.
The Myrtle Avenue BID runs along Myrtle Avenue, from Flatbush Extension to Classon Avenue, through the communities of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.