the wilds of industrial Brooklyn

Take a little walk with me, will you? I want to show you what I found on my four-block walk from the studio to the subway this evening.

First of all, say hi to a pair of our resident pigeons. They live in the space between our building and the next, so when it's quiet and the windows are open you can hear them cooing. Ever wonder where baby pigeons come from? I'm pretty sure they all originate from the canyon just below our windows.


Ok, do you see this building on the corner, with all the weeds growing up around it? Some of the weeds are taller than me. But look closely at the weeds behind the trash by the stairs. Look closer. What are those green and red things? Berries of some sort?




They're tomatoes! I nearly fell over when I noticed this last week. Remember, we're in industrial Brooklyn. Warehouses and factories, not gardens. This makes me so happy, to think that a tomato plant survived the summer in a crack of the cement! And look at all those green tomatoes! They're ripening, a few every day. I wonder if someone eats them for lunch? I'm not quite ready for that. Maybe it's the trash surrounding them that throws me off. Or the not knowing just what sort of soil is hiding in that crack.

So now let's do a little wildlife tracking, shall we? Just around the corner are some footprints that were left in the wet cement. I don't think they're real pigeon prints, but we can pretend, can't we? Just to add to the wilderness atmosphere of the evening, with the sun setting behind us?



And I saved the best for last. Remember our greenhouse bicycle friend? Well, I've intentionally NOT tracked down the mysterious owner, since I actually preferred to make up my own stories and was concerned that the truth would be a bit disappointing. But here is our beloved garden bike, being transformed from pink to yellow courtesy of TWO biker-gardeners! And the real story is at least as good as my imaginary ones: this couple gives "hidden garden" tours (maybe my weedy tomato plant has other fans?), they have a roof garden nearby, and they maintain a wagon garden at a gallery just around the corner. The basil harvest is in ("We love basil," they told me), and the bike will be going away for a while. But in the meantime perhaps I'll pay a visit to the wagon garden.