Westview Community Garden demolished, but not the neighborhood’s dreams

Full article "Westview Community Garden demolished, but not the neighborhood’s dreams" provided by Creative Loafing.

A bulldozer uprooted a garden of dreams in Southwest Atlanta two weeks ago. Now a community at the crossroads is desperate to buy back its future.

The half-acre of property at 1439 South Gordon Street was known as Westview Community Garden until it got leveled on Tuesday, March 31. As a Bobcat bulldozer flattened rich beds of soil where kale, collards, and fruit trees once grew, neighborhood resident and volunteer garden coordinator Abiodun Henderson’s eyes filled with tears.

“I didn’t know this was happening,” said Henderson, recalling later that day how her heart sank when she walked to the garden from her home two blocks away to find an independent contractor tearing up the ground she’d helped cultivate with neighborhood children. “I was literally traumatized and when the woman that was there working with her husband saw me crying and saw other people coming, she said to him, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ They realized this is something that’s cared for and loved by the community"...

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