Carolyn Ratcliffe Interview Transcript Interview Date: November 18, 2013 How long have you been a member

of La Plaza? I started gardening here in 1990. How did you get involved or decide to get involved? I moved to 9th Street on June 17th, 1989. There was a re where that low rise building is therethere was a squat, and it caught re, and the re trucks ran over the garden. And it was just at that point in time that these were two separate spaces. There was a fence that ran between where the gazebo isthe gazebo sort of crosses the linethe birch tree was in the garden, and that was the part that I was involved with initially, and at that point in time this was sort of a contested, no-mans land. Some people called it the Peoples Plaza, it had been established as La Plaza Cultural by CHARAS/El Bohio, and there was still litigation going on. What happened is that a guy that lived across the street, Don Yorty, had been very active, and Virginia Tillyard, who lives in 630, in trying to preserve this part of the space, which was known as La Plaza Cultural, because they both saw it out of their window. There used to be this gigantic willow tree that made this one look like a dwarf, right there, that was destroyed in one of the hurricanes. But, the space was known for the willow trees. What had happened in the 80s was that a soup kitchen had been in that spot across the street and they had asked the sort of informal block, or, there was a block association here, and they approached the block association about moving the soup kitchen into the garden, into La Plaza. Did you ever see the movie Rock Soup? That was lmed here, and it was quite an experience. At any rate, Rock Soup deterioratedpeople started putting up teepees in La Plaza and were planning to live here. And then a guy that lived in 700 murdered his roommate, and cooked her up in soup, and served her in Tompkins Square ParkDaniel Rakowitz. When that happened, everybody on the block, my understanding was, went berserk, came down with pipes and baseball bats and said, Get outta here. And so then after, that was like in the, I think about 87, something like that, between 84 and 87.

When I moved here in 89, that was over and done with, and Don Yorty, Anthony Chase, Mary Owens, Virginia Tillyard and some other people had been ghting to restore the park. And they found out that CHARAS/El Bohio had turned the property, or the lease that they had on the property, over to the Lower East Side Peoples Mutual Housing for the construction of Casa Victoria. And then there was this huge scandal, because the HUD representative said that the material was sent back to him four times, with the indication that he should approve it, even though it was located in a zone that wasnt appropriate for low-income housing, because of the concentration and because of the laws that had been passed at that point in time. And then the other thing that came out about it is that the contractor that they had chosen for Casa Victoria was Al DAmatos cousin, or relative, so there was a big scandal about that. And the other thing that came out in that lawsuit, particularly after the guy revealed that he had been sort of coerced into approving this site, was that there are two underground streams that intersect under La Plaza, right back where that toolshed is. Theres one stream that comes out of Tompkins Square Park, and it crosses Avenue B between 8th and 9th and sort of veers over here and it comes down the middle of our block. I live in one of the tenement buildings up the street, and when I moved in, the kitchen oorits a small one bedroom apartmentand in between, it went like this [makes a v with her hands], like an 8-and-a-half inch dip where the property had settled. Getting to know people on the block, they told me different stories about the buildings that had been here and what had happened to them. Some of the buildings had the buildings that used to be on top of the garden and on this site, one of the families was the super in the building and said they had to nail 2-by-4s to the oor in order to keep the appliances from rolling out of the kitchen into the living room because of the settlement. So with the buildings, there were res and they also cracked because of the unstable soil situation and the lack of maintenance, and everything. So, what had happened and evolved over a period of time: the space was that there was a lawsuit, and the garden was a separate entity. Dave Bober and Mary Owens had the lease for it. So when the city wanted to try to develop the property, they sued Dave and Mary for $150,000. They ended up signing a settlement agreement, or stipulation, which they didnt realize was the same as a contract. And in order not to be sued for

$150,000, they turned over the lease. What happened in 1989 when I moved back, and then there was the re, and then the following winter there was a woman who worked at Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran, and she wanted to try to revitalize the garden and she got me involved. And so we came down that spring and started gardening. We rebuilt the fence, we were able to get some supplies from GreenThumb, even though they werent supposed to give them to us, and Jane Wiseman was a real sweetheart about that in terms of trying to help us to restore the garden. Things evolved over a period of time when all the scandal broke about DAmato, basically the lawsuit was dropped. And the city was very embarrassed because of it, and they cancelled the plans for Casa Victoria here. So, from 90 to 93, we were restoring the garden, and we were dealing with the difculties of maintaining this space because it was adjacent to it, and there were numerous ghts about it between various and sundry factions in the neighborhood. We ended up building this amphitheater in 1993 as a way to restore the garden. And originally the seats had been made up of railroad ties, and the railroad ties were rotting. The other thing that we had an idea about was that we wanted it to display the art of local residents. So we had a garden meeting and we voted that we wanted to build the amphitheater out of stone so that it would last and be permanent, and it turned into this big block thing, where people came and worked Saturdays. Jimmy Simopolous who lives in the building 630 donated his truck, which barely survived, because we went to Brooklyn and all over where ever there were construction sites, and brought all these rocks back, and had work parties on Saturday afternoons. There are several Mexican families that live in this building, the Bello familiestheres Anselmo(Chaimo), Manuel, and Fermin, and their families were very involved in helping to build La Plaza, in the rebuilding, actually. There was one person who lived in the neighborhood who, when we said we wanted to put sculpture across the top of the hill, had a friend who came and built a barbecue pit on top of the hill. And it turned into a 24-hour bar and grill. Then the other thing that we were dealing with is that there had been a soup kitchen in the neighborhood, Dianes Soup Kitchen from Farmingdale, Long Island, that had been serving at Carmens Garden, and so she asked Mary about moving into La Plaza, and none of us were consulted about it, and all of a sudden we had the soup kitchen here. A neighbor kept the park open to serve the leftovers from the soup kitchen and It was like they werent cleaning up properly and we had lots of rats, and

it just turned into a 24-hour bar and grill. You know, people have different belief systems and some people believe that the park should be open 24 hours. One of the artists who helped us with the construction of the amphitheater was punched and beaten up. So we continued along that path until, like 1995, at which time a group led by someone named Mark the Fisherman went to the New York Beer Fest, or something like that, and came back very drunk and ripped down this whole fence. And at that point in time the whole block erupted, and said, Go back where you came from, and leave us alone! [laughter] The Ninth precinct is always very iffy about this block. Its verysome of the people that live on the block were extremely tolerant, very supportive of things like soup kitchens and poor people, and people getting food and assistance, and at the other end of the block they had supposedly one of the nest examples of Greek Revival architecture in New York City that they allowed literally to rot into the ground, because the pastor distributed the money to the parishioners because he felt that they were more in need of it than restoring the church. Then they had to go and raise 3 million dollars to build whats there now thats half the size. So, at any rate, its an interesting block. Its very diverse. There are people on the block whove lived here for a really long time, some of them most of their lives. Victor grew up on this block, the African American guy with the bicycle who just went by with his glasses, his parents were the super for that the building that was here, and then moved into 616. Mrs. Bethea has been here for a really long time, and some of the others, its like Im a newbie compared to them. At any rate, in 1995 after that happened, the city decided that they would give us the lease for the entire property, to maintain it. So we proceeded to go from just dealing with the garden over there, and trying to sporadically maintain this area, to having to be responsible for the entire area. We started a work program with community groups through New York Cares, and they provided volunteers who came down. And we had a neighbor, Hector, who came over and built this hill. He had access to a backhoe and worked in construction. So, it was like another work party. In 95 when we obtained the lease for the entire property, we worked with these volunteers to build the beds around here, and a woman who lives in this building, Patty Kelly, is the artist who designed these murals, she and Don had both gone to Carnegie Mellon, or Temple, or one of the schools in Philadelphia. Shes an artist and interior designer, and does murals and interiors all over. Those are the only two remaining samples of the murals. We

had another artist, Brigitte Engler, who had done a y on this wall, and Mario Bustamante, Robert Slaugter and I built a sculpture court where they now have the toolshed, because theres a cement bed there, and you couldnt garden there and it would be too much to dig it up. We hauled gravel up from a theater production at the Theater for the New City that had used these quartz chips, or limestone chips, and Mario mounted his sculptures there. He has a metal working shop, he lives on 10th Street, at that point in time I think he was living in Umbrella House. And these are the two remaining sculptures that he has in the garden. I was elected chairperson for the garden in 1990, and I remained chairperson for the garden, and became executive director for the block association in the 90s. And then I stayed with it until 2003. So I was able to get an architect, I got a grant from NYFA that paid $750 to John Shuttleworth, who is a licensed architect and was on the community board, to design the gazebo. And one of the earlier projects that we developed in 93, after we did the amphitheater, was to build a trellis across the top of the garden, and to have seating under it and to act as a grape arbor. And in 96, I think, we established a festival of the arts, and we had art shows, performances, Shakespeare, dance, we had ballerinas in combat boots... You name it, weve had it here. You can always be surprised. One of the most beautiful was a cello and dancer underneath the willow tree that was over here, it was an amazing process. Tamar Rogoff did a lm of the site specic performance piece that was funded by Dancing in the Streets, and it was called Demeters Daughter, and it was an amazing, amazing event. Theres a lm that you can see. Part of it took place here. Don Trammel, who lives below Don Yorty over here, was one of the performers in ithe portrayed Zeus. I was one of the storytellers in it. Tamar did an incredible job. It involved this garden, that garden, and CHARAS/El Bohio and it was sort of interactive, there were so many people from the neighborhood that were involved in the performance. It was absolutely amazing, there was a dancer, Felicia Norton, who was just incredible. She was Demeter. And one of the kids who had been born on the block, Sa Martinez, whos Will Connells daughter, was just amazing. Because its always been this amalgam of people that live here and that cared about this place, and wanted to keep it alive and vital. Could you talk a bit more specically about the experience of transforming this space into the garden, and what you wanted to accomplish with the way that you laid out the space?

Basically we had meetings, there were some designers who lived in this building right here, who designed the trellis. And Don talked Patty into designing the murals, Ross Martin did a design for the layout of the garden. The other thing, there used to be a mural on that wall of that building, before the building was renovated and they cut in those illegal windows, that was called El Sueno, and that was one of the inspirations for restoring the garden. CHARAS/El Bohio had been this organization in our neighborhood that had led sort of a revival. At one point in time, in the late 70s, this area was like a dumping ground for Battery Park City when they were building it, they would illegally dump here at night, and it was just being lled with garbage on these vacant lots, and Chino Garcia, Armando Perez, Louis Nieves, Bimbo Rivas, were actively involved and they had an organization called the Real Great Society, and they started reclaiming the space. Chino told me once when I interviewed him that it was like a statement that Were not garbage. You know? Youre turning our neighborhood into a garbage dump. And there was like this incredible difference in the neighborhood that had occurred from like 84 to 89. I had stayed here for a few months in 84 in the building that Im in now with some friends of mine, and I remember coming to visit them and the lot down the street where the precinct is now was vacant, and there was this junkie running for his life with his dealer chasing him with a gun, the needle hanging out of his arm, you know, Im ready to dive under the steering wheel of my car like, Where the hell am I? I would go to 608they had this huge metal door with this little window, and you had to call them from the street because there was no buzzer in order to get in. But, its crazy how have you seen that Julian Schnabel lm "Basquiat"JeanMichel Basquiat used to live in 630 E. 9th, he went out with Amelia Faulkner who lived in Serenity House in the next block of E. 9th Street . One of the Ramones lived down the block in 610. Its a really interesting block. At any rate, between 84 and 89 a lot of the buildings rapidly deteriorated and when I came back in 89 I couldnt believe it, it was like driving through Berlin after the war, because there were just these huge gutted spaces, and these vacant buildings, and it was really creepy. I ended up moving to 630 and the rent was very reasonable, and of course I thought I was going to be moving back to Staten Island... little did I know. At any rate, When we started working in the garden in 90, and then between 90 and 93, we had had monthly meetings, I had worked as a social worker and was apparently

very good at organizing things, so I was basically organizing meetings, taking minutes, bugging people repeatedly, Would you please do this? Don was like, Quit chasing people down the street! But its the only way you get things done sometimes. It was just like, a total wreck. I mean it was just unbelievable the amount of garbage, and the things that we had to go through, in order to rebuild this park. Literally, I was chased down the street, I was cursed, I was called every name and obscenity known to people. Some people felt like we were taking the park away from people, and it wasnt about taking the park away from peoplewe wanted people to have a safe place to come. And for it to truly be a plaza. And, we used to have dance parties here, where one time we had 500 people ranging in age from two and a half to 84, dancing. It was beautiful! It scared the police to death. They came en masse because somebody didnt like the music. And closed it down and said, You can never do this again! [laughter]. But it was also very much about having the space to be what its supposed to be, which is a Plaza. Like in Latino countries and in Spain, there are public Plazas where people go and they hang out. And when Chino and the others had developed the space, thats what they had envisioned. Buckminster Fuller was involved, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gordon Matta-Clarks widow sent me images of him working here in the Plaza with Chino and the others. The willow trees looked like little sticks sticking out of the ground. Slima Williams, who worked with CHARAS/El Bohio also had worked with Liz Christy and the Plant-a-Lot program, and this had been a Plant-a-Lot garden, which had been funded by the ABRONS foundation. And then when the lawsuit started, the plaque for the community garden or the community space disappeared along with the piece of ironwork that was over the main gate-I dont know if its still at Carmens or not, but it looked like a rising sun, that was over the Plant-a-lot gardens, I think theres still one on 4th Street, and, its just been an amazing experience. We had a block association on our block and we used that organization and then we reincorporated it, I dealt with the attorneys getting it reincorporated as a neighborhood association, because we had one block resident who wanted it to be like Gramercy Park, in that you had to live on this block and you would have a key. And the rest of us, its like thats not what its about. You cant do that. So we reincorporated it as a neighborhood association and went on from there. How do you think the experience of working to transform the space in the garden, along with how the garden continues to operate with programming and as an artistic space, helped to bring together the number of diverse people who live on this block?

La Plaza was saved by Eliot Spitzer, in negotiating with the city, and he basically claimed that the reason La Plaza should be saved is not because it was just a community gardenit was because it was public space, and that because of the performances that we had organized, and that I documented, profusely, in this book. We gave him that book right before he went into the negotiations. We were also able, with the NYFA I mean, what NYFA did in funding us with this garden, and Go Productions that acted as our scal sponsor, this garden wouldnt be here without them. The reason we were able to build that gazebo, is that I led the plans with GreenThumb and one of the reasons they let us do it is because it was done by a licensed architect. I mean, its built, it can withstand a tank. Its got foundations that go down four feet into the soil, and reinforced with rebar. A lot of it, we had to hire somebody to do the foundation, but we got everybody involved. A contractor across the street had helped with giving us an estimate on the cost of the lumber. Eugene Zych had volunteered to have his men put the roof on it, but at that point in time they decided not to do that and used the lumber to build another toolshed over here at one point, but we did get the funding through NYFA, and through fundraising to build that gazebo. And it was something that sort of held people together, you know? Because everybody goes, Oh, we dont want to put anything in your garden because its going to be destroyed. And what I found in working with people is that if you can keep the focus on going forward, and that you have an idea and a dream, and all of this really had been inspired by that mural that had been done by CityArts, called El Sueno, with the aspect of what the immigrants dream is. And, you know, its a place to provide where kids can play, and be safe, and its just an amazing space that it survived. And its come through so much, and it really is miraculous that its here. Did the history of immigration in the neighborhood have any impact on how you saw this place? The Latino immigrants have been here since the 1870s. They were imported by the Bavarians to work in the cigar industry. And they came from Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico. And then in the 1950s, the U.S. juggled the sugar market in Puerto Rico. They were giving people $50 to hop a plane to come to New York City to come work in the service industry. And then that bottomed out, and a thing that another friend had told me is that a lot of the people, when the Navy conscated a large portion of the Vieques-La Isla Nina in Puerto Rico, those people were forcibly evicted, and ended up in the projects in Jacob Riis and Lillian Wald. So, that was the big im-

pact of Latino immigration. Someone who is very knowledgeable about that is Damaris Reyes at GOLES. And one of the other things were trying to do is organize lm screenings and a panel discussion, as part of El Sueno, to deal with those issues, and to talk about it. The Latino population here has made a signicant contribution to our culture, and its vital, eclectic, you know, theyve suffered a lot in terms of the economic downturns and discrimination. And, too many people tend to think that they were heavily involved in the drug business, but not everybody thats Latino was involved in the drug business. And people, I think, got involved in it because of the lack of money from any other thing.