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Photo by Georg Gerster |
| This
aerial photo of "The [late NYC] Garden of Eden" (by Ecological Artist Adam
Purple) was taken in about 1981 by Swiss Photographer Georg Gerster; it
appeared in about 1983 in "Swissotel" (airline) magazine and also in "Amber
Waves of Grain" by Georg Gerster (NewYork: Harper Weldon Owen, 1990; foreword
by Garrison Keillor).
When this hand-made, world-famous eARThWORK was DELIBERATELY VANDALIZED (in September 1985 and on 8 January l986 from 7 to 8:15 a.m.) by New York City, New York State and U.S. federal govERRnME(A)NTs, all nine circular pathways had been paved with six courses of antique tenement bricks (note the two inner walkways in this photo), and the "anti-establishment" slum-oasis contained 45 fruit and nut trees (including eight black walnut trees, four of which were fruiting), vegetables, flourishing black raspberry bushes overgrowing a "dry-stone" wall, herbs, and thousands of flowers (including more than 100 rose bushes). Adam,
unaware that the photo was being taken, works very near the bottom of the
scene, just left of center....
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| From
March 1975 to March 1980, "The Garden of Eden" resoiled five tenement building
lots--about 15,000 square feet--in short: "One person, one lot, one year!"
Making
night-soil in August 1979 (in the back "yard" of 184 Forsyth Street) required
36 square feet/person/year. This maximum required area had been reduced
(by 1998) to NINE square feet/person/year, to a depth of ONE FOOT, or NINE
CUBIC FEET of virgin topsoil per person per year!
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