Slavic Village Garden Project Sketches

           

          

Slavic Village Garden Project Overview

 A collaborative project between students from Oberlin College and members of Cleveland Botanical Garden's Greencorps program and community members from Slavic Village

  the garden

 the view from the rooftop garden   the neighborhood

 ghazi's market

 the auto-shop next door, from whom the garden gets tires for planters

 learning about the garden from ayla zeimer, OC '09

 learning about slavic village from kelly

 working on designs

 the rooftop garden

 ayla tending okra

 the compost bins

 tire planters

 brainstorming ideas

A Brief History of Slavic Village, Cleveland

Slavic Village, located on the southeast side of Cleveland, was a primary settlement area of Polish and Czech immigrants in the 1880. The population of the Eastern Europeans who came to work in the woolen and steel mills peaked in the 1920s. This demographic decreased due to mass suburbanization throughout the 1960s. The 1970s saw an attempt to revitalize the neighborhood with the establishment of what is now the non-profit Slavic Village Broadway Development Corporation which seeks to support the community by preserving it’s unique history and character. In 2007, Slavic Village was dramatically affected by the foreclosure crisis. The Slavic Village Garden, part of the Cleveland Botanical Garden, was created in the spring of 2008 out of an abandoned parking lot. The garden seeks to impact the vitality of the neighborhood by educating and providing jobs to youth, while creating healthy, local and affordable food options.