Скачать или смотреть Garden offers sense of community for New Yorkers

(27 May 2020) As New York grapples with the COVID-19 outbreak and the city's shutdown, one place in Brooklyn has remained open.
"With all of this crazy fear, getting back to the outside would really matter," Randy Sandlin, 59, an artist and organizer of the Lentol Garden in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, said.  
Sandlin took over operations of Lentol Garden, a lush oasis running along an offramp of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway in 1995.
Completely volunteer operated, the garden evolved into a therapeutic environment, one where members could escape the daily grind in the city.
"I think when we're in our apartments, our minds go crazy," Sandlin said. "The sounds of the emergency vehicles going and we know what that stands for. But when we come here, the green sort of comforts us."
Polama Soledad, 42, has been an advocate of the healing powers of the garden long before the virus outbreak.
A cancer survivor, she used the garden as a safe space to be outside. During her recovery, she was assigned a special plot away from direct sunlight to accommodate her condition.
"Just being in the earth, I think the juxtaposition between city life and planting is such a relief," she said.
Members of the garden have come seeking safety in solitude but also safe interactions with their community.  
"We're actually able to keep doing something that's physically engaging with other people and we're able to talk about it, maybe process our feelings around all the stuff that's going on the other side of the fence," Simone Mangano, who frequents the garden during the outbreak along with her husband and five-year-old daughter, Beatrice, said.  
"This is the only place I think that she wants to come because it hasn't changed as much."
The family treats the garden like the backyard they're missed as city dwellers.
Sandlin and the community have an enormous amount of pride and appreciation for the time and work that goes into taking care of Lentol Garden. Inside the garden, all their worries around life, death and the virus dissipate.

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