A garden grew in North Philly

DRUMMERS sounded out the beats of protest across the street from the Norman Blumberg public-housing projects yesterday.

Colorful flags, including the red-green-and-black flag of the African Liberation movement, hung from the community-built "earthship" - a hut made of earth, old tires and other recycled materials. The hut sits at the edge of the newly fenced-off North Philly Peace Park.

The earthship is a handmade "community center" serving as an alternative school for a neighborhood that has seen two nearby schools - Roberts Vaux High and Gen. John F. Reynolds Elementary - close recently.

Children could read books and take music lessons there after school, on weekends and during the summers. The park was also home to a garden, where fresh veggies were a neighborhood staple.

About 50 people - black, white, older and younger - gathered yesterday at Peace Park, 24th and Bolton streets, he Philadelphia Housing Authority's fencing off of a garden where PHA plans to start construction this summer on 57 rental homes.

"The North Philly Peace Park represents a strong counterargument to what we so often hear about low-income and working-class black people in the media," said Ron Whyte, a volunteer at the garden.

"The community came together and transformed this blighted, crime-ridden lot into a beautiful symbol of people power and self-determination.

"We hear that outside forces want to come in and 'revitalize' this neighborhood. Well, it's the people who fixed up this lot, not the city, not any nonprofit. And then they put a fence around it."

Tommy Joshua, 35, a third-generation resident of the Sharswood neighborhood and a leader of the Peace Park activists, said the protest grew out of anger when neighborhood residents saw PHA workers putting a fence around the garden last Friday.

Some residents took off the back section of the fence about 20 minutes after it went up, he said.

Patrice Armstead, a garden volunteer, said police didn't know what to do "because they thought of us as peaceful people. The police have danced here with us when we've had celebrations."

Still, in her speech, she angrily called on police standing nearby to stop treating residents as if they live under an occupied force.

For the past three years, people have gotten as much kale, peppers, broccoli and okra as they wanted, Blumberg resident Leroy Smith said. "I'm going to miss this garden," said Smith, 79.

"This area is a food desert," Joshua told the crowd, noting the dearth of local supermarkets.

The Peace Park garden started in 2012. But a year earlier, a crew of area residents, aided by Occupy Vacant Lots, cleaned off several area lots.

Earlier yesterday, Joshua and about five park members met with PHA officials who promised to provide nearby lots to replace the garden. "We are cautiously optimistic," Joshua said.

PHA spokeswoman Nichole Tillman said last night that the authority would work with Peace Park activists to find a new location for the garden on Stewart Street, near 22nd and Jefferson.