LHaus
May 27 2010

GREENWATCH: Long Island Farming City a growing reality?

Rendering of the (upcoming?) Long Island City Farming Park, LIC

Well we seem to have stumbled upon yet another rooftop farm planned for Long Island City. It makes sense if you consider all the heavy-duty industrial rooftops sitting vacant and soaking unobstructedly in the sun all day, and it’s a smart vision to employ it as farmland. Adaptive reuse in action, folks.

The Urban Farming movement is definitely getting tons of PR these days in general. Here’s a great overview of the technologies urban farms are experimenting with in many cities, including the Long Island City Farming Park, which from the rendering appears to be located somewhere in the LIC/Sunnyside overlap.

The description:

“All too often we see land being taken away for parking and at the same time the reclamation of abandoned parking lots to turn into viable land, specifically farms in urban environments. The project, which is a park and ride facility and urban agricultural farm attempts to combine these two typologies to co-exist on one site, bringing the process of food production and consumption in contact with a major multi-modal transfer point between the car and NYC’s existing public transportation network.

The project will provide an alternative option for those accessing NYC by car and also challenge the conventional function of a park and ride facility to provide a greater good for those users and the surrounding neighborhoods; connecting Long Island City and Sunnyside Queens with a much needed public green space.”

The other LIC urban farm brought to us ironically by Brooklyn Grange, is also back on track with approvals from the city that the Standard Motors Building roof can indeed withstand over 1M pounds of farm. They should be selling vegetables locally by this fall’s harvest.

And don’t forget about the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm just a few minutes walk over the Pulaski Bridge in Greenpoint. It’s fully developed, and a great experience just in general, especially for kids. They love the chickens.

Neighborhood

11 Comments

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Fascinating project. How do they ensure that pollution from the vehicles and runoff in the park and ride facility don’t affect the crops?

#1 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

I wonder where this would be exactly? And would it be affected by all the work on the Sunnyside Yards that they’re doing now, bu Northern Blvd. and Queensboro Plaza.

#2 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

There was a good idea at the hearing about the high school last week, that they should make the school an environmental theme and put a farm on the rooftop.

#3 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

In another 5 years once this urban farming fad passes, this stuff is going to look so dated.

#4 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

Like glass condos #4? Or LIC real estate blogs?

#5 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

Or like Green Markets….bmitOh wait those are still around because eating food never goes out of style.

#6 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

4, I agree that urban farms might no longer be a fad, but that’s because they will be the norm and widely accepted as a smart and practical thing to do with underused spaces. I could imagine more and more food being grown and distributed locally as energy costs rise and people see the benefits of distributing food locally. It’s already happening in many parts of the country. This is an example of NYC playing catch-up.

#7 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

I highly recommend watching Food Inc. It shows how horrible industrial farming has become in this country and how ill-informed we, as consumers, are kept by the food industry. This is not a trend, in the sense that it will be short-lived. It is a corrective measure that will help us eat healthier, while better connecting us to our food sources. Eat local, organic and sustainable.

Hurray for urban farming! And happy Friday!

#8 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

Do you think the food grown on these rooftops is really safe to eat? I’m not criticizing just asking an honest question. I wonder if the city pollution has any impact on the plants, and also if they use any pesticides? Are these organic farms?

#9 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

Actually only meat and, I believe poultry is considered ‘organic.’ Anything else is just marketing and not truly organic in any meaningful, regulated way.

#10 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

It’s possible to eat local, organic, and sustainable, without this folly of turning urban space into farms. Farming on rooftops is very un-natural, forced, inefficient and not cost-effective. Rather than putting outrageous sums into building miniscule boutique yuppie farms on expensive real estate that yield incredibly low volumes of produce, why not support and put resources into the great farmers on the North Fork of Long Island, New Jersey, and Hudson Valley, who are more than capable of more cost-effectively filling New York City’s food needs?

Growing very expensive produce for high-end restaurants who can charge excessively for it because it is “locally grown” is VERY, VERY far from any real concept of sustainable organic agriculture.

#11 Anonymous / 1 year, 8 months ago

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