Brooklyn Boro

Deadline to enter Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest coming up fast

Brooklyn Gets Greener Every Year

May 25, 2017 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Botanic Garden
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This weekend brings the unofficial start of summer, meaning it’s time for organizations and civic groups to enter the 23rd Annual Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest. Applications must be entered online by Thursday, June 1.

Over the years, participating block associations and other organizations have spread swaths of green — enlivened by rosy reds, berry blues and pansy purples — across whole neighborhoods throughout the borough.

The competition brings neighbors together, gardeners say, and makes the city a happier place. It is presented by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in partnership with Borough Hall and the Brooklyn Community Foundation.

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Last year’s top prize was awarded to the 300 East 25th Street Block Association in Flatbush. Brooklyn Eagle correspondent Andy Katz noted the little details that contributed to their win:

“A worn leather boot lovingly filled with robust succulents sits atop an iron fence; porch steps are lined on both sides with dozens of plant-filled pots; and, perhaps most significantly, everything looks so healthy. Flowers of fierce yellows and reds or deep blues, purples and pinks hold their colors without any fading; their edges are sharp and nothing is even slightly brown or desiccated — even in high summer,” Katz wrote.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams told the assembly that the block was “speaking to us.”

In 2015, Bainbridge Street between Stuyvesant Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant finally took home the top prize — after entering the contest every year since 2004.

So far this year, organizations like the 200 Hicks Street Block Association in Brooklyn Heights, Westinghouse High School in Downtown Brooklyn, five block associations in Gowanus and dozens of block associations in Central Brooklyn have entered. About a dozen organizations in Flatbush are also in, as are two in Bay Ridge.

The Greenest Block competition got its start in 1994 to encourage gardening, sustainability and community involvement. Only 50 blocks entered in the first year, but now roughly 200 blocks enter each year.

Prizes are awarded to winners of both residential and commercial blocks for categories including greenest storefront, best window box, sustainable practices and other greening efforts.

 

See bbg.org/community/greenestblock for more information. Or email [email protected] or call 718-623-7250.

 


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