Photo courtesy of Julia Lichtblau
By ELEANOR TRAUBMAN | news@queensledger.com
Eleanor Traubman is the founder of My Local Heroes, which lives on both Facebook and Instagram. Now in its fifth year, MLH is a celebration of activists, artists, athletes and entrepreneurs from Brooklyn and beyond who are working to make their communities better places to live.
Launched during the pandemic, the project was featured in News12 and The Patch, and received a Covid-19 Heroes Award from the former Brooklyn Borough President.
This article is part of a series of posts Eleanor is writing about community leaders and their take on local community involvement. This week, we’re featuring her conversation with Julia Lichtblau, the organizer of the Secret Garden, a green haven located at 253 DeGraw St.
My Local Heroes: How did you become the organizer of this garden?
Julia Lichtblau: I live next door to the garden and directly across from the house of the two gentlemen, Nat LaMar and Christopher Adlington, who owned and created the garden. When Christopher died and Nat (who had never been a gardener) needed help, I was the closest person, and also an avid gardener in my own right. So it became sort of natural to take on the project of building a community to keep the garden up.
MLH: In what ways has this garden brought members of the local community together?
JL: It’s so beautiful and was originally designed to be seen from the gate, but not entered, Christopher being an extremely private person.
When Nat began to allow people to come in and garden for him, there was the allure of being admitted to the inner sanctum. And the desire to preserve this exceptionally beautiful garden, which we were lucky enough to have in our neighborhood, drew people.
Then COVID hit just as we were getting going, and it became one of the few safe, healthy, enjoyable, and constructive social activities around, especially for families with kids.
At the time, it wasn’t clear whether Nat had made formal plans for the garden’s preservation, though we knew he wanted it to go to the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust.
There was a lot of uncertainty about its future when Nat accepted a guardian to look after him as his health declined. We wanted his guardian to see that we were looking after his property for him, following his wishes, so there would be no question of the garden not being worth preserving from sale or development.
As it turned out, he had left it to the BQLT in his will. So there wasn’t any conflict about that, just a long wait for the probate process to work through the courts.
A view of the Secret Garden by day, dappled with sunlight.
MLH: Why are community gardens important in these times?
JL: For one thing, children aren’t exposed to lore about the natural world that you pick up from playing in the woods and running around unsupervised—the way I did, for one, in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. Kids knew a lot about plants and bugs, not to eat pretty but poison berries that looked like blueberries (pokeweed) and strawberries (snakeberries), for example.
We, the garden friends, always encourage—enthusiastically urge—children of all ages from babies on up—to help when they stop in, they always want to help—dig, pick up sticks, plant, rake, build stuff, and to teach each other. A lot of parents don’t know much about plants. So it’s a chance to encourage them to learn and not mind getting dirty. We don’t use toxic chemicals and there are no dogs, so it’s about as clean a space as you’ll find in Brooklyn.
There are young kids who are very interested in plants and nature and we take them seriously and talk to them like adults. Their parents tell us that they look forward to coming back all week.
MLH: What are some of your daily tasks as the Gardens organizer?
JL: Thinking ahead to what has to be done—planning our Solstice concert (June 21!), following up on suggestions and proposals that gardeners have in mind—pot lucks, movie night, planting this or that. Sending out the weekly email.
MLH: What do you love about being in this garden?
For Brooklyn, it’s a pretty big garden, but it’s not expandable. There is something quite miraculous about the endlessly bounteous and self-perpetuating cycle of flowering plants and trees, which Christopher chose and tended. At the same time, we always seem to find room for new plants, and they look indispensable once they take hold.
It’s also become the center of a self-perpetuating community, continuously open to newcomers, but stable. A wonderfully genial and kind and fascinating crew, full of new ideas. I look forward to seeing us together every time.
