North Bronx Collective
- Audio
- Interview
“Working with the land is a joyous, rewarding experience. But in order to get to that joy, the pain that this land has been through must be acknowledged and put in the center of these conversations.” - Alicia Grullón, North Bronx Collective
In 2020, a group of Bronx residents, educators, artists, parents, and activists came together to independently restore Tibbett’s Tail, an overgrown and polluted public park stretching between 234th Street and 238th Street. Their goal was to make it accessible to the community in a moment when the need for public green space was taking on new urgency. The space became a vibrant community hub, hosting meal distribution for food-insecure families in the Bronx and other mutual aid efforts. Then, in March of 2021, NYC’s Parks Department installed a lock on the gate to the park without warning, barring access to the community who had devoted so many resources to the park.
Their story reveals the precarity that persists for many community gardeners, and struggles around access to public land that has shaped so much of our city’s urban landscape. North Bronx Collective members Francheska Alcantara, Alicia Grullón, and Lucy Mercado sat down with Life Between Buildings curator Jody Graf to talk about Tibbett’s Tail and the Collective’s continued mutual aid work.
“Working with the land is a joyous, rewarding experience. But in order to get to that joy, the pain that this land has been through must be acknowledged and put in the center of these conversations.” - Alicia Grullón, North Bronx Collective
In 2020, a group of Bronx residents, educators, artists, parents, and activists came together to independently restore Tibbett’s Tail, an overgrown and polluted public park stretching between 234th Street and 238th Street. Their goal was to make it accessible to the community in a moment when the need for public green space was taking on new urgency. The space became a vibrant community hub, hosting meal distribution for food-insecure families in the Bronx and other mutual aid efforts. Then, in March of 2021, NYC’s Parks Department installed a lock on the gate to the park without warning, barring access to the community who had devoted so many resources to the park.
Their story reveals the precarity that persists for many community gardeners, and struggles around access to public land that has shaped so much of our city’s urban landscape. North Bronx Collective members Francheska Alcantara, Alicia Grullón, and Lucy Mercado sat down with Life Between Buildings curator Jody Graf to talk about Tibbett’s Tail and the Collective’s continued mutual aid work.