Promenade gardeners celebrate another successful growing season
Beautifying Brooklyn Heights Promenade since 2009
“There may be finer views than this in the world, but I don’t believe it,” President Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 at the site where the Brooklyn Heights Promenade would later be built by Robert Moses.
But it’s not just the views to the west that make visitors want to stroll along this scenic walkway or settle down on a bench to chat or read a good book. The lovingly-nurtured Promenade gardens, a third of a mile long, serve as the neighborhood’s backyard and oasis.
This oasis is tended by a stalwart group of volunteers who gather every Tuesday morning to weed, compost, plant and snip. It’s one of the largest garden volunteer groups in the city and it’s been going on since 2009, when the Brooklyn Heights Association and the city’s Parks Department formed a partnership called the Promenade Garden Conservancy Project. BHA underwrites roughly half the cost of the Parks Department’s professional horticulturist, Anil Chandrakumar, who tends to the Promenade garden three days a week.