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Overgrown Lot Next to Ray's Pizza to Become Community Garden

By Emily Frost | January 13, 2015 2:57pm | Updated on January 13, 2015 4:59pm
 Ray's Pizza has formed a partnership with a local resident who wants to create a community garden in their vacant lot. 
New UWS Community Garden
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UPPER WEST SIDE —  A thorny tangle of overgrown plants and abandoned flower pots on West 82nd Street will become a community garden this spring, thanks to a local resident determined to improve the space.

Ted Hall, 28, saw potential in the fenced-off 800-square-foot lot near Columbus Avenue, owned by the neighboring Famous Original Ray's Pizza, and got the pie shop's permission to build a vibrant garden of fruit trees, vegetables and composting rain-collection bins.

He received a $2,500 grant from the Nature Conservancy to get started and is looking for volunteers to help, he said.

"We want this to be a place that can re-balance nature’s ecosystem," said Hall, an urban farmer who previously worked at Bushwick City Farm.

Ray's Pizza had once planned to build an cafe in the empty lot so customers could enjoy slices outdoors in warm weather, but the owner scuttled the idea during the recession several years ago, said Herve Flota, the restaurant's manager.

Whenever Flota saves enough money to fix up the garden, the cash always winds up going to fixing a broken air conditioner, a refrigerator or some other appliance first, he said.

So when Hall approached Flota about the garden about six months ago, Flota told him: "Why not?"

"It's like a small jungle," Flota said of the space, adding that cleaning up the lot is "not easy to do."

"It's a big project," he said.

Aside from the Nature Conservancy grant, Hall has no other funding sources yet and he's working as a volunteer.

He plans to do some pruning and clearing this winter, but the bulk of the work will begin in late March or early April. Hall is also planning "work days" with a group of neighbors who've already expressed interest. 

He's open to all kinds of partnerships — with local groups, schools and organizations — and plans to be at the garden regularly on Sundays so he can meet people who might be interested in helping.

The garden, which Hall tentatively named "Seedball Garden," will become a "food forest" by the summer, Hall explained. 

Among the plants he's planning to grow are carrots, zucchini, onions, corn, beans, squash, crab apple trees, Concord grapes, blueberries and raspberries. 

This amalgam "might look messy, but all the plants will be working together," Hall added. 

Anyone interested in getting involved can email Hall at ted@seedball.us