Famous Ankles

When I was in Spanish Harlem recently, I came across a number of community gardens. The most absolutely unusual one I have ever seen is right there on Pleasant Avenue and has the very “Barrio” sounding name of “Los Amigos Garden and Casita”.

The key to the “unusual”-ness of it is the word “Casita”. I hadn’t seen it on a community garden’s name before. It turns out that the word means “little house” and refers to a small house within the garden area. Imagine my surprise when I walked into a community garden and saw the below.

It was actually occupied. I thought I had wandered into someone’s yard and was trespassing! There were a few well-humored guys there (no English that I heard) and they motioned me to go on up to the house. But I felt like an intruder and took a couple of pictures and moved on. It wasn’t until later that I discovered the concept of casita and realized it might have been a real treat. But, then I really don’t know the rules of the house and whether it is only for community contributors and the like.

It doesn’t really matter. I wanted to see something unusual in El Barrio and I got something rather nice and special. To bad for me I didn’t know it at the time.

-H

This entry was posted on July 23, 2008 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Harlem, Manhattan, Wanderings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.