A local gardening group, founded by a former DeWitt Clinton High School teacher, has been ordered to vacate a beloved garden created on the school’s campus a decade ago, much to the dismay of some local student farmers and others in the community.

 

Former English teacher and later DeWitt Clinton sustainability coordinator, Raymond Pultinas, said he taught at the school, located in Jerome Park, for more than 25 years, cultivating the one-acre garden in question and facilitating hands-on work experience for student farmers.

 

Pultinas said he started the garden, a fenced off section of the school’s campus, located between West Mosholu Parkway South and Goulden Avenue, as an informal project with his students in 2010. Together with student interns and some local volunteers, he said it was later formally launched with the school’s blessing and was named “Meg’s Garden.”

 

It was named in honor and memory of Megan Charlop, a longtime, Bronx community activist and volunteer. Charlop had been director of the Division of Community Health at Montefiore’s School of Health, where she oversaw medical clinics at 16 Bronx schools. She was tragically killed in a bicycle accident on March 17, 2010, aged 57.

Pultinas retired from his formal role at the school in 2017. A year later, he opened the James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center (JBOLC), a nonprofit with an address at 100 W Mosholu Pkwy S, Bronx, NY 10468, which is the school’s campus address. The center hires student interns and, up until last month, had been teaching them how to grow fruits and vegetables at Meg’s Garden. Pultinas named the center after James Baldwin, the essayist, poet, and activist who graduated from Dewitt Clinton High School in 1942.

 

Serving as founder and director of the center, Pultinas said he opened it “to keep those projects going,” referring to different student gardening projects. Since he began the work in 2010, Pultinas said his programs have served thousands of students over the years.

 

“DeWitt Clinton administration encouraged us, since my retirement, that our organization, would become an official school partner once we became a 501-C3, purchased the proper liability insurance, and prepared a draft of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) – all of which we did,” Pultinas said.

 

“There was tacit agreement that our plans were approved and encouraged since we were led to believe that an agreement would soon be in place.” Of the Clinton Campus Council’s decision to evict the group from the school garden, Pultinas said it happened once the school returned to in-class learning. “They condoned the project for many years, so it was a shock when they came back from the COVID break, basically back to in-person instruction in the school,” he said.

 

“We shared with them our annual report which showed we were really very active during COVID,” he added, saying the group has distributed more than 2,400 pounds of food to the community, contributing to local disaster relief.

For example, among other projects, the group hosts the JBOLC Farmer’s Market each Saturday. The market is held on public property along Sedgewick Avenue, between Goulden Avenue and West Mosholu Parkway South. However, a google search for the market lists it as being located at the school campus address.

 

Pultinas received the formal, emailed notice of eviction from Meg’s Garden on April 23 from the campus council, which comprises the principals of four public schools operating on the DeWitt Clinton campus. These are Bronx Collaborative High School, Worldview High School, DeWitt Clinton High School, and District 75 High School. The latter is a new school that is part of the Special Ed TOP program for special needs students.

 

In the email, a copy of which has been obtained by Norwood News, Pultinas was informed that a vote was held on whether to continue issuing the required permit to JBOLC to allow the group to continue their work in the garden. Three were against, none were in favor, and there was one abstention.

 

The council thanked Pultinas for his presentation of the center’s annual report to them on April 20, before then referring to a specific NYC Department of Education (DOE) regulation, and wrote, “We feel issuing this permit is not in the best interest of the campus or our students.”

The council also instructed Pultinas to comply with a series of actions by May 12. These included the removal of all personal/JBOLC equipment from the DeWitt Clinton campus, the removal of all mention of/or association with the DeWitt Clinton campus from the JBOLC website and all published material, and the removal of the campus address from the JBOLC website as the “location” of the JBOLC Farmer’s Market.

 

The May 12 deadline has since been extended to June 4. In conclusion, the email notice read, “We are informing you that at no point can you, or any member of the JBOLC enter onto or invite anyone onto the grounds of DeWitt Clinton Campus.”

 

Student farmer and DeWitt Clinton senior, Brigitte Buntin, became a paid intern at JBOLC three years ago. Reacting to news of the eviction, she said, “The news really made me angry, but also sad at the same time, because the school was saying that the program was not doing anything for the students, and that it is not beneficial for the school.” She said she didn’t follow what the school officials were talking about when they said this because the center/program was providing the students with jobs.

 

Buntin added, “We’re learning how important community gardens are, and things like that that the school doesn’t teach, and it’s kind of sad that they’re taking that away from the students.”

Meanwhile, Eytan Stanton, 19, is a 2019 graduate of Bronx High School of Science who had been studying agriculture at the University of Southern California when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Upon returning home, he began volunteering at JBOLC. “So this was a space where we were outdoors and masked, but we were able to continue cultivating life at a time when things felt exactly the opposite,” he said.

“To have this space, where the community gathers, cultivates, grows food and just heals together is incredibly important and I’m just outraged and I don’t understand the decision made by The DeWitt Clinton Campus Council,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pultinas said the garden is self-funded through grants received through JBOLC from institutions like United Way and the National Endowment for the Arts. He said he currently has 11 kids working for him, and that monies earned go back into the garden. Pultinas said the school has not had any outlays for the upkeep of the garden, as these have all been handled by the center.

 

At the Farmer’s Market held on Saturday, May 22, JBOLC’s Sung Kim was busy working with two young children who were seen watering plants and assisting Kim at a separate “pollinator garden,” which is also run by the JBOLC. “We want to engage children to teach them how to grow and nourish flowers,” she said, adding that it helped to beautify the area.

 

In reference to Meg’s Garden, Kim said, “They gave us an eviction notice without good reason, so all of the community members are very upset that we can’t go into the garden anymore.” Meanwhile, the pollinator garden is located on a NYC Department of Transportation traffic island, across from busy Sedgewick Avenue and not, therefore, on DeWitt Clinton property. Consequently, neither the pollinator garden nor the Farmers Market will be affected by the eviction order.

Pultinas confirmed that irrespective of what happens with Meg’s Garden, the students will maintain their jobs working at the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays, selling donated bread from Terranova Bakery in Belmont, since they no longer have access to the garden to sell fruits or vegetables at the market.

 

“Luckily, we’re still running the market, so our students are still going to be working as interns,” he said. “But the full experience of what we had going here was really much more. It was kind of the whole connection between nature and growing, and the market, and perennial herbs and seeds and things like this that we would gather for the market. We grew a lot of vegetables to donate to the market.”

 

Members of JBOLC had been allowed keep unsold food from the Farmer’s Market, and had used it to stock two community refrigerators, one at Jerome Avenue and Bedford Park Boulevard, and a second in Kingsbridge at West 242^nd Street and Broadway, serving as lifelines to disadvantaged members of the local community.

 

On Monday, May 24, a call and an email request by Norwood News to the four principals at DeWitt Clinton High School, as well as an email sent to DOE superintendent, Sabrina Cook, generated a response from assistant principal, Steven Deep, who forwarded the query to the DOE press office.

Sarah Casasnovas of the DOE responded, saying, “Schools should be a safe collaborative space for students and staff, and this group has not been issued an extended use permit since 2019, due to violations against DOE regulations.”

 

The DOE alleges that JBOLC failed to maintain the garden, ignored directives to cease operations, referred to the school’s property as a “community garden,” and changed the landscaping of the campus grounds without approval. As such, DOE said the group was no longer fit to partner with the school. Casanovas added, “The garden is temporarily closed until a new partner is found that will keep the area safe and useable for the school community.”

 

Norwood News reached out to Pultinas for comment, following the feedback from DOE. He described it as “absurd,” saying a common feature of all DOE community schools is that “community members are engaged in activities that help build a stronger school community.” He said the center took this directive seriously.

 

He added that the allegation regarding the lack of upkeep was equally absurd as the group was unable to tend to the garden of late, since they were not permitted to enter it. He said he doesn’t know what the school is referring to when it refers to the change of landscape, adding if they meant digging shallow trenches, a common permaculture technique, this was done to maximize rainwater retention.

Pultinas agrees the center does not have a permit since 2019. “When Mr. Deep, DWC Assistant Principal, reminded us that we were operating without a permit, that is the first thing I did. I requested a permit,” he said. “That was when we received an eviction notice with reason. By the way, these complaints you’re sharing with us now are the first we ever received. Note, they were made known to us after we were evicted,” he added.

 

On Sept. 8, District 11 City Councilman Eric Dinowitz issued a press release in which he said that for years, JBOLC and Meg’s Garden had provided educational opportunities for children and garden space for the community, and that recently, JBOLC had initiated a community farmers’ market.

 

He said that in April 2021, DeWitt Clinton Campus chose not to renew JBOLC’s permit to utilize the school grounds and announced that JBOLC would no longer work with students or the community, adding that the campus later indicated that Meg’s Garden would “return to original landscaping,” indicating its imminent destruction.

 

Dinowitz said that following his intervention, JBOLC regained a permit to continue to utilize the school grounds for their community farmers’ market during the weekends. Dinowitz said he ramped up pressure on the DOE and on Clinton Campus to fight to save the program and the garden, and to collaborate with JBOLC.

 

He said his persistent efforts led to the DOE committing to the preservation of the garden, and JBOLC’s continued involvement in school and community planning. Through a letter, he said that the DOE said, “Meg’s Garden space will remain on site and will not be removed,” a move now supported by the Clinton Building Council.

 

As a collaborative measure, a DeWitt Clinton Campus Garden leadership committee, consisting of JBOLC, a yet-to-be named community based organization, and members of the Clinton Campus Community, will be installed. Dinowitz said this comes on the heels of his successful effort to acquire a permit for JBOLC to continue community programming at the Saturday farmers’ market.

 

He said the committee will meet at the beginning of the school year and will provide an open platform for their members to discuss the future of the space. “After months of advocacy, the DOE recognized how essential this space has been, and will be, for the community and our children,” said Dinowitz. “All the meetings that took place over the past months allowed the students and community to speak out about their needs, and defend something that has been so impactful to their lives, particularly during these past 18 months. I would like to thank the DOE for listening and providing an opportunity for JBOLC to continue the admirable work they’ve done with the garden, our children, and our community.”

 

Meanwhile, Pultinas said, “We want to thank Council Member Eric Dinowitz who worked hard on behalf of the students and the community. With his support, we now have a voice in the Garden Advisory Committee which will direct all future decisions regarding the garden spaces. As a Committee we can start to work out regular garden hours, permitting after school hours, class visits, etc.”

 

He continued, “This will certainly be an asset for us – we will be part of the governing body deciding on garden utilization and we will have people to help. Working together we are confident that the threat of eviction is over and that the garden will remain a space for students and community members alike.”

 

JBOLC’s Farmer’s Market will continue every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. until November 20, when the season ends. For more information on the center’s gardening programs, residents can visit the group’s website: www.jamesbaldwinoutdoorlearningcenter.org.

 

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.