The garden is a meeting place, but the meetings take place
mainly across the fence,
conversations between the gardener and passersby. Few people
actually enter the garden, probably because its gate is hidden.
Only the sign announcing its sponsorship by the Spruce Hill
Garden Club gives a clue to its semi-public function.
Adam Levine cares for the Spruce Hill Garden on the corner of
44th and Locust Streets. The garden, with
its low fence, flowerbeds, lawn, and
ornamental trees looks like a private, well-tended
territory, a yard. Locust is a major
path to and from work and school for many people, and many others
go out of their way to pass the garden.
The Spruce Hill Garden Club was formed as a committee of the Spruce Hill Community Association in 1958 to promote beautification in the neighborhood. The committee soon became an independent club and took on several projects, including the Spruce Hill Garden. The Club's overall goal is, in the words of Joe Moloznik, charter member and former president, to "band together to improve the quality of life in this area."
Local residents say that the Spruce Hill Garden was once the
site of two houses, which collapsed over an underground stream, leaving a vacant lot. When the Club originally started the Spruce Hill Garden, the members designed the garden
and tended it communally, making decisions by vote. Gradually,
however, the gardeners dwindled to one. The current gardener,
Adam Levine, became involved in the 1980's: "I used to walk by
the garden all the time and there was this little old man taking
care of this beautiful garden, and I figured that has got to be a
story. And there was." Levine started helping that older man,
then joined the Garden Club.
As the garden has passed from one hand to another, there have been small changes: a new, curving stone wall and a rock garden. Many neighborhood residents pass the garden every day, watch it as it changes--daily, seasonally, and yearly, and protect it. The tradition is now thirty years old, but as Levine notes, "There's always change, that's part of any garden anywhere."
People will tell me what is going on in their garden and what
they are doing and ask me about this or that. I don't know if I
would like gardening in my backyard, it would be pretty, but no
one would see it."
"Half the reason I garden here is because it's not just for me, but for everyone who walks by."
