With help from her family and neighbors, Jenny successfully revitalized a derelict lot into a thriving, lush garden, which has been lovingly tended by Jenny and local volunteers ever since the 1970s.

In a decades-long, never-ending process of stewarding this one acre area of Riverside Park, Jenny, alongside her husband Victor, her children, and her neighbors, created a multi-generational, multi-cultural community of urban gardeners in West Harlem.

This space was severely neglected for years and was littered with trash, abandoned cars, and home to dangerous activity. In partnership with Riverside Park Conservancy and the New York City Parks Department, Jenny engaged the neighborhood, fed the hungry, and blessed the city with a horticultural oasis that grew across a half mile of landscape along Riverside Drive.

Jenny’s Garden is a living example of collective, community-based agriculture within an urban landscape. Today the Garden continues to be led and stewarded by local volunteers.

We are inspired by the ongoing work of all volunteers at this garden, and the community that has grown around it. This piece of land (which is just shy of one acre) produces a significant harvest every year, much of which is donated to local community centers and soup kitchens.