Deconstruction & Urban Gardening Go Hand in Hand
Community support, innovative recycling and city efforts are helping to keep deconstruction resources out of landfills as Cleveland uses the former Stanard School site on Stanard Avenue near E. 55th Street south of St. Clair Avenue, as a catalyst for urban agriculture. Though the project will take longer than traditional demolition, it will help preserve a piece of Cleveland’s history and bring the promise of better access to local produce for Cleveland’s food desert—an urban district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet, but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants.
“I can’t wait for that building to come down,” said Chris Kious, Housing Services Manager at St. Clair Superior Development and founding partner of A Piece of Cleveland (APOC). “That wood is 100-125 years old.” At APOC, Kious and his partners find and save old wood and use it to build new furniture and artisan wood pieces.
Volunteers and the crew of C & J Contractors have started tearing apart and hauling away pieces of the former Stanard School. The structure’s remnants form piles of bricks and lumber scattered on top of the asphalt parking lot, which any interested party can come and claim for free. The most expensive aspect of deconstruction is labor, and because this project relies so heavily on volunteers, the city is able to afford to follow through with this project.
“The goal of all this is to get as close to zero in the fill as possible,” said Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman, Ward 13. Cimperman is intimately involved with this deconstruction project and is currently working toward making it Cleveland’s first zoned urban farm. “You can’t put a price on that kind of community cohesiveness,” he said.
“Joe, I think, always had it in his head that it would be the site of an urban farm,”
said Jessica Levine from Wonder City Farm, who manages a number of productive urban gardens and farm plots throughout the region with her sister Emmy.
Cimperman approached the Levine sisters about the possibility of working the lot after deconstruction is finished because the two manage a site across the street where they have begun soil building on top of an asphalt parking lot. Cimperman and the Levine sisters hope that urban farm zoning will help make lots like the ones the Levines rent in other areas a more permanent part of Cleveland’s landscape.
In the mean time, C & J employees like Tamika Bell are collaborating with other groups and organizations like Rosie’s Girls, a three-week trades exploration camp for girls entering 6th-8th grades, in an effort to use this deconstruction project as an educational experience for youth and other programs.
“Ironically, the original use for the land was farming,” said Cimperman, who hopes he can help return the land to its agrarian roots. He also hopes the site will be ready for bees, chickens and soil building by fall.
For more information on APOC, contact at 216-534-6173 or visit www.apieceofcleveland.com. For more information on Wonder City Farms, email wondercityfarm@yahoo.com.
August/September 2008 Contents