3. De Witt Clinton Park Started Out as New York’s First Community Garden

The first community gardens in New York City — or farm gardens as they were originally known as — appeared in 1902 in De Witt Clinton Park, spearheaded by a Mrs. Henry G Parsons, who went on to become one of the first senior-level park administrators. Children from nine to 12 years of age cultivated plants, flowers and crops including corn, beets, beans, peas, turnips, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, celery, and radishes. A farmhouse was also built where girls were taught how to do house chores and boys learned outdoor tasks.

In addition, the program showed participants the proper way to cook their harvest and Parsons proudly noted that girls were taught how to farm right alongside boys, a fundamental part of Farm Garden education at the time. Both boys and girls kept diaries and tracked the progress of their vegetables during the growing season. The Farm Garden at De Witt Clinton Park lasted until 1932, when construction on the West Side Highway cut into the park’s boundaries.