A striking motif plays through our conversations with gardeners.  A number have observed that, within the boundaries of the 61st Street garden, they feel safe and at home in the city.  They cite several reasons for this.  The comings and goings of other gardeners.  Activity generated on 61st Street by the Experimental Station and Carnegie School.  The ring of large structures--steam plant, "chiller," AT&T facility, and U of C Press building--that seem, however blank their expressions, to look down protectively on the garden.

Taken together, though, these circumstances don't alter the fact that this is, by urban standards, a sparsely populated area.  Long intervals pass when no one is around.  And during months the garden is dense with growth, a violent presence could conceivably hide in the green and pull a victim out of sight.

The mystery is deeper still.  For several gardeners, women, have said they feel safe in the garden, even when alone, and even at night.  Putting aside questions of prudence, there is something worth exploring here.

The garden stands apart from the world yet open to it.  Its boundaries are distinct but not enforced by high fences, locked gates, threatening signage, or other tokens of "security."  It is a welcoming, undefended space.  To enter the gate is to be embraced by a certain quality of presence.  Even in the absence of other gardeners, the residue of their attention is immediate and consoling.

Is it possible that the care invested by many hands, tending their 10' x 10' plots over the years, has created a secure sanctuary in the midst of the turbulent city?

For the last few weeks, I have been talking with gardeners at an imperiled community garden on the South Side of Chicago.  My colleagues at the Invisible Institute and I are making a “live documentary” about the garden, daily posting short conversations with gardeners, speaking out of their 10’ x 10’ plots, while we work on a full-length narrative.  (You can taste our work at the end of this post.)  At this point, we don’t yet know how the story ends.

Located at 61st Street and Dorchester Avenue, the garden is on land owned by the University of Chicago.  Since 2000, the U of C has allowed the gardeners—I am among them—to use the site.  Last spring, it informed us it wants its land back The University has no immediate plans to build on the site, but rather intends to use it temporarily as a staging area for the construction of a building at the other end of the block. It has set October 30 as the deadline for the gardeners to vacate the land they have cultivated.

Over the past six months, various efforts have been made to engage the U of C in conversation about possible practical alternatives that would preserve the garden until the time comes to build on it.  (That process began with this essay.)  While we have had some fruitful, informal conversations with individual administrators, the institution’s position has remained unchanged: It’s our land. We want it back. You always knew your use of it was provisional.

What looks the strongest has outlived its term

The future lies with what's affirmed from under.

                                                    Seamus Heaney

For close to a decade, a diverse group of gardeners has cultivated a community garden at the corner of 61st Street and Dorchester Avenue on the South Side of Chicago.  Over time, they have transformed vacant land in a precarious area into a singular urban amenity.

The land on which the garden is located belongs to the University of Chicago.  The University made it available with the explicit understanding that use of the site for gardening was provisional.  It was always clear the day would come when the U of C would reclaim the land for its own purposes. 

Early this year, that moment arrived.  The University announced it intends to use the garden site as a staging area for construction of a new building for the Chicago Theological Seminary a block away at the corner of 60th and Dorchester.  It has set October 30th as the deadline for gardeners to vacate the site.

I speak as a gardener.  My wife and I are among the 135 households that participate in the 61st Street Community Garden.  We are a diverse mix.  Racial and class integration are the least of it.  The true diversity of the garden is at the level of individual experience, character, and sensibility.  The garden may look rural, but it is a quintessentially urban space where we savor difference on common ground. 

Launch photo essay by Patricia Evans

Blank slates make for easy planning. Awareness of ecological richness confounds the process, creating conditions for innovation. The purpose of this essay is to complicate the planning process for the new Chicago Theological Seminary building to be constructed on the south campus of the University of Chicago. When the larger urban ecology is made visible, this project becomes at once problematic and full of promise—ripe for elegant design solutions.

In May of last year, the University announced it had entered into an agreement to purchase the CTS complex at the center of its campus. It plans to use the structure to house the Milton Friedman Institute (a name that provoked intense controversy, even before the economic crisis sharpened questions about the wisdom of unregulated markets). As part of the agreement, the University will build a new facility for CTS. According to the CTS website, the seminary will move in 2012 to a new building at the southeast corner of 60th Street and Dorchester Avenue:

Overlooking the scenic Midway Plaisance, the planned facility will feature a LEED-compatible "green" design by Dirk Danker of Chicago-based Nagle Hartray architects. Plans call for a four-story, 75,000-square-foot structure capped by a green roof. A semi-circular, glass-enclosed chapel and meeting space will provide a welcoming setting for worship and gatherings. The lower level will accommodate future expansion.