M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden

This place is reaaaaaally beautiful and amazing that it’s plopped right in the middle of Chinatown! So many flowers, benches, and even a live rooster! The best thing about a garden like this is that it’s so close to cool places in East Village/​Soho/​LES/​whatevs that you can relax, then eat, drink, and come back. Definitely try it out in the Spring… but don’t tell too many people about it.

We spent a little time sitting in this garden today and it was a very pleasant oasis amidst a crowded neighborhood. It’s probably a lot prettier earlier in the season, since there wasn’t too much in bloom at this point. Regardless, we greatly admire all the volunteers who tend to this garden and others.

This little garden charmed the living hell out of me, and my wife as well.
We’d wandered around the LES on a Saturday afternoon with the intention of going on a spontaneous date, but it was too nice a day to sit inside, and the few places with outdoor seating were mobbed. The last thing we wanted was to be in a crowded place on a beautiful Saturday afternoon we were determined to waste at a leisurely pace. So we said screw it, and hit the Essex Street Market to piece together a picnic we’d enjoy in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. We landed here. How lucky we were.
The garden is beautiful, the people who care for it equally so. While we enjoyed our picnic in absolutely lovely surroundings we caught sight of a few migrating birds passing through NYC to wherever the hell they were heading. Not the kind of birds you see everyday, either. We even managed to smuggle in some wine, which we surreptitiously sipped from to go coffee cups, just to make it perfect. And it was.
Just before 4PM one of the volunteers came by and told us the garden was about to close. We cleaned up the wreckage of out picnic and left, ever so slightly smugly, with the knowledge that few, if any had a better afternoon on the LES than we just had.

What a lovely oasis in the city! Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, and there are 3 resident chickens! Apparently they were tossed over the fence and spent their first winter roosting in the trees, but they lucked out and the volunteer gardeners have now built them a chicken house and pen. Two men were stuffing a scarecrow for Halloween, and there were several people working in the garden. There was a cookout going on as well — what a great community resource! Stop in if it’s open.

Little piece of heaven on the west edge of Lower East Side. Make a chance to stroll in when you happen to find the gates open. Pick a spot after your round and stay for a while, with a book, just your thought.
Highly recommended.

This emerald jewel in the tenement jungle of the lower East Side is absolutely gorgeous. It’s very well-​kept by the loving volunteers, and Bob Humber, the head gardener and one of the founders of the garden when the LES was still a battleground of drugs and crime, is an incredibly sweet man. He will talk to you all day about the garden and its past if you bring questions. (Look for an older man, usually in a baseball cap.)
The M’Finda Kalunga garden is not only a great place to see flowers and unusual plants – I almost always see several species of butterflies fluttering around here as well as many different birds. In fact, it’s startling how much life you’ll see in this tiny plot of city land!
The Stanton Street CSA distributes their fruit and vegetable shares here on Thursday evenings, so I know the garden is open then. Other days you’ll have to investigate – it’s not always open, even if volunteers are inside caring for plants. But come back again if it’s closed, because it’s a charming place.