ART-BREAKING
Murals, sculptures pulled from garden
IT WAS a bitter pill for Sugar Hill.
A crop of elderly Harlemites who helped build the Senior Citizen Sculpture Garden were broken-hearted to learn their urban oasis will no longer honor a long line of black civil rights leaders, entertainers and pioneers under its new leadership.
The city carted off a sizable haul of decades-old sculptures, paintings and murals — the work of community groups and residents who were left with memories of what the garden once was.
“They took the history out,” said Carlton Bieno, 74, a lifelong resident who volunteers in the garden and was saddened by the change.
The 2-block-long green space was run by Sugar Hill resident Vicky Gholson, who transformed a trash-strewn lot where drug use and prostitution were rampant into a blooming community garden on 153rd St. near St. Nicholas Ave., more than 20 years ago.
“It was the only open space in Harlem that celebrated Harlem seniors,” said Gholson, who heads Designed Environment for Experiential Learning, a nonprofit think tank. “The park was part of the healing process. It was an asset.”
The Department of Environmental Protection refused to renew Gholson’s permit, noting that she failed to get liability coverage for the cityowned garden. The insurance was required after Gholson added a pond and put up several unpermitted structures including a wooden gazebo, an official for the agency said.
“When she took over the space, she really did the city a good deed,” said an agency official, adding that she was given more than a year to resolve outstanding issues. “It was really a neglected site.”
The city gave Gholson four months to remove the artwork, considerably longer than the 30 days required by law.
When she didn’t comply, the Department of Environmental Protection tossed out a host of sculptures, colorful paintings and murals of Martin Luther King Jr., Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and other notable leaders. The pond was filled with plastic sand bags.
“The thing that hurts me and a lot of other seniors is they removed the artwork,” said Milton Bell, 68, whose son, now an adult, worked on one of the murals when he was a child. “Our kids laid on the boards and painted and now they’re grown and it’s gone.”
Gholson, who argued she didn’t have enough time to rectify the situation, said she wanted the community to have a say in what it becomes.
St. John’s Baptist Church, on W. 152nd St., took over the garden in March and began working on it last month, said Danita Hammock, executive director of the church’s Wilson Major Mor- Mor ris Community Center Inc.
Hammock said she wants to transform the garden, renamed “Hope: The Friendly Garden on the Hill” into a memorial for veterans and plans to have it fully up and running by July.
But the seniors who invested thousands of dollars into the garden over the years say they’d rather have their old green space back.
“When (Gholson) had the garden we had all of our heroes on the wall,” said Bieno. “We want (Gholson) back.”