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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 6, 2008

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Brooklyn Botanic Garden's 2008 Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest Winners Announced!

The Greenest Blocks in Brooklyn Are in Park Slope and Boerum Hill!


First-Time Winners in Both Residential & Commercial Categories

(left to right) : 2008 Residential First Place Winner, 8th Street between Prospect Park West and 8th Avenue; 2008 Commercial First Place Winner, Bond Street between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street in Boerum Hill (Photos courtesy Brooklyn Botanic Garden).

PHOTOS (left to right) : 2008 Residential First Place Winner, 8th Street between Prospect Park West and 8th Avenue; 2008 Commercial First Place Winner, Bond Street between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street in Boerum Hill (Photos courtesy Brooklyn Botanic Garden).

More high-resolution photos of the winning blocks can be downloaded directly at bbg.org/photos.



Brooklyn, NY—August 6, 2008—The winning blocks for the 14th annual Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest were heralded today at a press conference on the first-place residential block: 8th Street between Prospect Park West and 8th Avenue. Also present were representatives of the winning commercial block: Bond Street between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street in Boerum Hill. The Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest is a borough-wide annual gardening initiative managed by GreenBridge, the community environmental horticulture program of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, in cooperation with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. The Independence Community Foundation continues its historic sponsorship of the competition and is pleased to use its Sovereign Bank Endowment Fund in support of the effort. The annual Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest is a lively competition between hundreds of borough residents committed to neighborhood beautification and making Brooklyn "greener" than ever.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden President Scot Medbury, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Independence Community Foundation Executive Director Marilyn Gelber and Sovereign's Nia Rock were on hand to congratulate the winners in the residential and commercial categories.

Each year, residential and commercial blocks compete for the coveted Greenest Block in Brooklyn title. The contest encourages members of block associations and merchants' associations to work together to beautify their blocks with window boxes, container plantings, front gardens, storefront greenery, street tree beds, and other greening activities. Recently, street tree bed gardening has been highlighted as part of a value-added judging criteria, encouraging entrants to consider the care and health of the street trees on their blocks. Plus, this year the Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest introduced a new "Best Community Garden Streetscape" award to honor the contributions community gardens make toward greening up Brooklyn streets.

Throughout the year, Brooklyn Botanic Garden's GreenBridge team offers programs and events to encourage borough residents to begin greening their blocks. In early spring, GreenBridge sponsors a window box kit sale, which provides affordable window box kits to those looking to get a head start on their spring planting. Tapping into a resurgence of interest in locally grown food and green lifestyle adjustments, GreenBridge offered salad starter window box kits in 2008 in addition to the long-appreciated boxes for sun and shade and the newer herb window box kits—and sold almost 500 kits to Brooklyn residents. BBG's GreenBridge also offers a limited number of free street gardening clinics to block associations and neighborhood groups throughout the spring and fall. And every March, GreenBridge produces Making Brooklyn Bloom, a free daylong conference on urban gardening, featuring hundreds of ideas for borough residents looking to make their neighborhoods greener and more beautiful utilizing smart horticulture practices.

In addition to the year-round programs offered by BBG's GreenBridge, the Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest is designed to share the knowledge and resources of Brooklyn Botanic Garden with the neighborhoods of the borough. These programs promote conservation and community—making Brooklyn a greener, healthier, and happier place in which to live, work, and play.

Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest Achievements

Since its inception in 1995, the Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest has encouraged greening activities in over 1,200 Brooklyn blocks, from Park Slope and Bay Ridge to East New York, Clinton Hill, and Crown Heights. Over the past 13 years, an estimated 500,000 residents have participated in this borough-wide beautification and greening effort, which has strengthened Brooklyn's neighborhoods and forged relationships between neighbors who might not have known each other's names before entering the contest. The Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest has helped revive block associations, and in some cases, inspired residents to create new organizations around common issues and interests. In many of the borough's least-served neighborhoods, where participation in the contest has continued to grow, this kind of community building plays a critical role not readily found anywhere else.

Through the Garden's Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest, community involvement has grown exponentially over the past 14 years—from 50 blocks in the first year to over 200 blocks this year.

Residential Category Winners

First place in the residential category is awarded to 8th Street between Prospect Park West and 8th Avenue. The residents of 8th Street tackled the "citizen participation" aspect of the contest with creativity and determination—by hosting "Mulch and Wine Night," a fun evening dedicated to encouraging fund-raising for topsoil and mulch, and "Stoopendous," a stoop sale and greening-education program to spread the word about the initiative and raise funds.

Sharing the honors for Second Place in the residential category:

Sharing honors for Third Place in the residential category:

Fourth Place in the residential category goes to Bainbridge Homeowners and Tenants Block Association for Bainbridge Street between Malcolm X Boulevard and Stuyvesant Avenue, Bedford Stuyvesant

Commercial Category Winners

First Place in the commercial category is awarded to Bond Street from Atlantic to Pacific (East) for Bond Street between Atlantic and Pacific avenues, East Side, Boerum Hill

Second Place in the commercial category goes to Mid-Atlantic Block Association (South) for Atlantic Avenue between Bond and Nevins streets, South Side, Boerum Hill

Third Place in the Commercial Category goes to Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership for Myrtle Avenue between Waverly and Washington avenues, South Side, Clinton Hill

This year's entrants were distinguished by outstanding pride, citizen participation, and community spirit. Considering the Garden's emphasis on care and maintenance of the street tree beds, the judges noted the enthusiastic attention to caring for our "gentle giants of the urban landscape" through use of mulch, tree guards, and colorful flowers and foliage. The contest participants displayed greater plant varieties as well as an increase in the number of window boxes and interesting plant combinations used in the boxes. The participating blocks showed extraordinary enthusiasm and teamwork, enhanced by the creative talents of the residents who demonstrated an eye for sophisticated garden design and plant selection.

In the new category of Best Community Garden Streetscape, the first-place honor is awarded to the Brooklyn Bears Pacific Street Garden on Flatbush Avenue between Atlantic and Pacific streets in Boerum Hill. Second place goes to 6/15 Green Community Garden on Sixth Avenue and 15th Street in Park Slope.

The Best Window Box honor is awarded to Kathy Geisler of Boerum Hill. Second place in this category goes to Donna and Edward Drakes of Bedford Stuyvesant, and third place to Rae-Ann Heinrich of Prospect Park South. The winners of Best GreenBridge Windowbox Kits for Sunny Box and Shady Box are the Jones Family of Lefferts Gardens and Callie Janoff and Randi Stolzfus of Crown Heights, respectively.

In the category of Best Street Tree Beds, top honors go to Macon/MacDonough/Stuyvesant/Lewis Block Association for Macon Street between Stuyvesant and Lewis avenues in Bedford Stuyvesant. Second place is awarded to Crown Street Block Association between Bedford and Rogers avenues in Crown Heights, and third place to Macon/Reid/Patchen Block Association for Macon Street between Malcolm X and Patchen avenues in Bedford Stuyvesant.

The Greenest Storefront winner is Cake Man Raven, on Fulton Street in Fort Greene. Second place is awarded to Burrito Bar on Flatbush Avenue in Prospect Heights, and third place goes to Stan's Place on Atlantic Avenue, in Boerum Hill. "Brooklyn is so green, we make everyone else 'green with envy.' The Greenest Block contest has truly 'taken root'—it's been 14 years and it continues to thrive and bear the fruit of beautiful communities and a healthier environment," said Borough President Marty Markowitz. "Here in Brooklyn, we're real competitors—especially when it comes to gardening—so being chosen as Greenest Block means these communities are the crème de la crème, or should I say, the greenest of the green. When Brooklynites plant seeds, all of Brooklyn blooms."

Marilyn Gelber, executive director of the Independence Community Foundation, Brooklyn's largest grant-making foundation said, "The seeds we planted with Brooklyn Botanic Garden 14 years ago to create this annual urban gardening challenge continue to yield great green benefits to our communities. Everyone wins when neighbors work together to beautify their blocks, their homes, and their gardens. The Greenest Block contest is really a celebration of neighborhood spirit and love of Brooklyn, and we are pleased to continue our sponsorship of this wonderful partnership."

"Through the Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest, Brooklyn Botanic Garden strengthens the bridge between the Garden's expertise and resources and the Brooklyn residents interested in creatively expanding the green potential of our borough," said Scot Medbury, president of Brooklyn Botanic Garden. "Each year, this friendly competition empowers citizens to bolster community connections and discover good stewardship of the environment—all while reinvigorating the landscape of their neighborhoods with beautiful and thoughtful gardening. BBG's GreenBridge community outreach program continues to support community gardens, community centers, block associations, and other groups to promote conservation and cooperation through gardening activities to build a greener Brooklyn for generations to come."

Nia Rock, vice president for Community Development, Metro Division, Sovereign Bank, noted that Sovereign Bank, which acquired Independence Community Bank in 2006, continues to support the goals of this worthy community effort.

There is no cost to enter the contest. Blocks were judged based on a variety of criteria including color and total visual effect, citizen participation, variety and suitability of plants, soil condition, use of mulch, street tree and tree bed care, and other good horticultural practices. A panel of over 30 judges, which includes professional horticulturists from Brooklyn Botanic Garden and other NYC greening organizations, visited each entering block from mid-June throughout July—rain or shine.

After only two years of working diligently and creatively to build community and a greener, more beautiful block, the 8th Street Block Association is taking home the first-place honor in the 2008 Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest. Jane Fields Becker, greening co-coordinator said, "We are excited and honored to have our block recognized with the first-place award. This contest has brought together the different cultures our block enjoys—that of the Brooklyn brownstone and the multidwelling limestone, our newer neighbors. We've all learned from each other, and each year we hope to improve our greening efforts in some significant way, always with our eye on the top prize." Joyce Jed, greening co-coordinator explained, "For example, we invited the BBG GreenBridge educators to speak to the residents about environmental stewardship and plant care; we created planting compositions and tree bed prototypes as models for residents to emulate and removed the stone blocks from the tree bed for better tree health." According to Becker and Jed, their increased and ongoing communication among the residents on the block, including e-mail, 8thStreet Greening Committee meetings and brainstorming sessions, social events like the "Mulch & Wine Nite" group purchasing of planters, shared watering and plant care, and sharing of plants and gardening books all contributed to creating a greener and more socially involved block and ultimately, the first-place win.

First place in the 2008 commercial category is Bond Street from Atlantic to Pacific (East) for Bond Street between Atlantic and Pacific avenues, East Side, in Boerum Hill. This is also a first-time win for the block. "We have worked together for eight years to make our block greener. Truth is, we started from minus zero," jokes greening coordinator Nancy McKiernan when asked to describe how the block got to be number one. She gleefully recalled its journey from graffiti and litter to earning top honors. "We are a street of family-owned businesses—filled with boutiques and shops. And as any entrepreneur will tell you, there is not a whole lot of time and money for gardening, but we knew that working together we could improve the look of our street. And improvement breeds improvement," added McKiernan, who has been described as a spark plug and catalyst to get other businesses involved. "We are near a major A subway stop, and we also receive a lot of vehicular traffic—this combination makes for a lot of pedestrians. And they all tell us what a comfortable place to shop our street has become." McKiernan recalled that they started with some good trees, enlarged the tree beds, and gradually added more trees. "Now we have containers filled with evergreen shrubs and perennials—so we don't have to buy new plants every year." Then the shop owners just add some colorful annuals: oxalis, lime-green potato vine, and their favorite pink begonias. The business owners have demonstrated creative Brooklyn moxie too by devising a drip irrigation system to keep their containers watered, using tubes to redirect the runoff from the window air conditioners!

For a full list of winners and more information about the contest, visit bbg.org/edu/greenbridge/greenestblock/.

First prize includes a $300 check and coveted plants from Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Signature Plant Collection for each top residential and commercial block winner. Other finalists will receive cash prizes ranging from $100 to $200. Window Box and Greenest Storefront winners will receive cash prizes or gardening tools, and all participants will be awarded a recognition certificate. Contest participants who attend the fall recognition ceremony will also receive a gift bag of fall bulbs and a commemorative Greenest Block in Brooklyn poster.

Press conference attendees also had a chance to win raffle prizes from Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Two winners will receive memberships to Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and other winners receive recently published All-Region Guides from BBG, including Community Gardening and Gardening With Children, as well as Greenest Block in Brooklyn baseball caps.