SPRING
2006
VOL.16, No. 2
URI
URBAN ISSUES
Newsletter of the
Urban Resources Initiative
at the
Yale School of Forestry &
Environmental Studies
SEEING THE
URBAN ECOSYSTEM
Photo by Joshua Schachter
Capturing Imagination
in An Urban Park
In this issue:
A New Look at an
Old Park
4
Seeing Heroes
Through the
Camera’s Lens
5
The City as a
Classroom
6
Natives & Invasives 9
by
Sara
Ohly
Origins
In 1999 Lenzi Park reflected the decline
and dereliction of nearby Grand Avenue
over the previous fifteen to twenty
years. Once a thriving two block stretch
of retail stores for the building trade,
the area had by then eleven social services including two prison programs,
three drug treatment programs, and a
homeless shelter, as well as a street drug
problem, and two package stores.
Merchants were finding it difficult to
attract or keep customers who were
fearful of panhandlers and groups of
men standing about.
Dedicated to the memory of Joseph
Lenzi who died at Iwo Jima in 1945,
Lenzi Memorial Park was designed by
world-renown landscape architect Dan
Kiley as a playground in the 1970s, after
the Eaton School was torn down. When
my children were small in the 1980s, we
avoided Lenzi Park, already a “museum
of dangerous and broken toys”, in the
words of Christy Haas at the Parks
Department. By 1999, it had become a
public toilet, full of discarded liquor
bottles, needles, and condoms, paved
over with asphalt, concrete, and broken
glass. The concrete benches and tables
strewn with detritus told a sad story of
human misery.
The Grand Avenue Association of
Merchants and Residents, which I cochaired, represented both sides of
Grand Avenue: In 1999 the largely
African-American and Latino commu(continued on page 3)
URI
NEW HAVEN / URBAN
RESOURCES
INITIATIVE, Inc.
Yale School of Forestry
& Environmental Studies
James Gustave Speth, Dean
Hixon Center for
Urban Ecology
Gaboury Benoit, Co-Director
Stephen Kellert, Co-Director
URI Faculty Advisor,
William R. Burch, Jr.
URI Staff
Colleen Murphy-Dunning
Chris Marchand
Christopher Ozyck
Justin Pegnataro
New Haven/URI
Board Members
Josephine Bush, Chair
Myles Alderman
Anna Bartow
Gordon Geballe
Christopher Getman
Meghan Knight
Robert Kreitler
Lawrence Lipsher
Sara Ohly
Patricia Pierce
Evelyn Rodriguez
David Rosen
Joseph Ryzewski
Joanne Sciulli
Leigh Shemitz
Susan Swensen
James Travers
Harry Wexler
Urban Issues
Rosi Kerr, Editor
YaleRIS, Layout
URBAN ISSUES
Spring 2006
Vol. 16, No. 2
www.yale.edu/uri
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2
FROM THE DIRECTOR
For those of us who are urban dwellers, and about eighty percent of Americans are,
recognizing that we live in a natural ecosystem is often difficult. The built environment can so dramatically dominate our view of the landscape that our experience of
the city as an ecosystem is diminished. Light pollution, for example, can obliterate
our view of the stars in the night sky. If our relationship to nature becomes impoverished, does that lead to a weakened stewardship ethic? Our contributors to this
volume of Urban Issues explore this topic–how students are learning that they live
in an urban ecosystem, and how ordinary citizens find meaning and purpose as
stewards of the environment they inhabit.
In our cover story, Sara Ohly beautifully describes the transformation of Lenzi
Memorial Park over time. She shares the progression of the park from a decrepit
space to a cherished landscape, and the story of the individuals, neighbors and
groups that made it possible. Recognizing that many people contributing in many
different ways reclaimed this landscape, Sara recounts their roles in the project’s
development.
Just as the night stars may be hard to see, parks and other natural resources are
not always visible: Editor Rosi Kerr tells the tale of a park at the very beginning of
this process, in the story of Bishop Woods. We hope that Bishop Woods will follow
the Lenzi trajectory, with a diverse group of citizens working together to recover
this city park as a resource, rich in natural assets. Revealing and exploring the natural processes in the urban landscape is critical to this effort, and critical to the work
of URI.
The importance of everyday childhood experiences in nature is the focus of
Justin Pegnataro’s work at URI, and his newsletter article. Justin explains the philosophy behind why our Open Spaces as Learning Places education program is
focused upon increasing children’s knowledge of and direct contact with nature in
our urban ecosystem. While more scholars and leaders are calling for “No Child
Left Inside,” in the words of Connecticut DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy, there
are immense gaps to bridge within our increasingly constrained school system to
achieve that vision.
Whether through interning with Justin in a 5th grade classroom, or studying
the New Haven ecosystem through courses at the Yale School of Forestry &
Environmental Studies (FES), URI creates opportunities for FES students to both
learn and teach. For instance, students Tenley Wurglitz and Colleen Sullivan studied invasive species in an FES course at Beaver Ponds Park, and shared their findings with the Community Greenspace group members who manage the park.
A hands-on approach to studying invasive plants in a New Haven park enriched the
learning experience of Tenly and Colleen and by disseminating their class project
results they’ve deepened the understanding of our Greenspace participants. They
have also given neighbors a new tool to use in their capacity as park managers. I
hope including their article, written with Editor Rosi Kerr, sparks our readers to
consider this common urban management challenge.
The Spring Newsletter serves as a reminder that change is happening all the
time in our urban ecosystem. Spring rains are falling–it is time to get outside,
to work alongside neighbors planting their visions of community, and share that
experience with our children.
Colleen Murphy-Dunning
Capturing Imagination in An Urban Park
nity to the north, and in Farnam Court,
the public housing project to the east,
joined Italian neighbors and more
recent residents of diverse racial and
ethnic backgrounds living on St. John
Street and Wooster Square to the south.
We met at LEAP (the Leadership,
Education, Athletics Program) monthly
and worked to bring together merchants, residents, and the existing social
services around a plan to restore a balance of social services and retail to the
neighborhood. Brian Titus, an architect
and the first and only President of the
Association, saw Frank’s Hardware of
Grand Avenue as “City Hall” for the
Association, and Lenzi Park on Jefferson
Street as the link between the merchants
and the residents north and south of
Grand Avenue and between Farnam
Court, LEAP, and Conte West Hills
School. With that in mind, Chris Ely of
LEAP applied to URI for Lenzi Park in
2000.
Design
The real transformation of Lenzi Park
began when URI chose it for a three
year U.S. Forest Service Grant in the
spring of 2001. Colleen Murphy Dunning,
Director of URI, organized two
“Community Charettes.” At the first,
members of the Association, the extended neighborhood, and the Lenzi family
voiced their concerns and priorities to a
team of scientists and landscape designers from the office of Diana Balmori,
Associates. At the second, they heard
the results of extensive soil tests and
unanimously chose the design of a path
with cherry trees, flowering shrubs, and
a spray fountain. When the New Haven
Garden Club visited the site and contributed a grant for plantings, we began
to envision a beautiful, safe, even serene
pathway through trees, shrubs and
perennials in place of grim paving,
trash, and invasive plants.
Phase One: Demolition
Photo by Joshua Schachter
(continued from page 1)
The seven phases of the plan began with
demolition of the thick concrete wall
and asphalt of the handball court, and
the concrete tables and benches.
Unprecedented coordination among
LCI (Livable Cities Initiative), the
Department of Public Works, and the
Parks Department accomplished the job
over late July, early August of 2002. As
soon as demolition started, park neighbors began to notice the drop in negative activity while they watered new
planters of flowers from the Parks
Department.
Phase Two: Planting a Path,
Trees, and Grass
Chris Ozyck, Greenspace Coordinator
at URI, graded the site and put in a
curving path of stone dust. Carla Short,
the URI intern, organized the community and students at the Yale School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies to
plant the first three cherry trees and
four flowering shrubs on August 17,
2002. The newly formed “Friends of
Lenzi Park” group, joined by curious,
excited neighbors living around the
park and volunteers from Project
Apoyo, set to work. Over several fall
weekends, they cleared stones and construction debris to plant grass and
bulbs.
Phase Three: Clearing Invasives,
Nurturing Natives
In the third and last year of the Forest
Service Grant, during the season of
2003, a dedicated cast of activists
emerged. Each person found a job that
suited them and their interests and
together we filled the many jobs
required, in the same way the many
species we planted together created a
beautiful, meditative park. Alex Bragg,
retired respiratory therapist from St.
Rafael’s, developed a set of practices to
discourage harmful behavior in the park
and encourage positive contributions
from the human community around it,
much as we labored to curb invasive
Joan Whitney watering a newly
planted tree in Lenzi Park.
plants and nurture natives. An AfricanAmerican who grew up in the neighborhood,—raised, he liked to say, in part by
the Italian community—he supervised
young boys from Farnam Court eager to
participate in digging deep holes in the
construction debris of the former Eaton
School for five more cherry trees.
Alex, David Eliscu, Laura Marks,
and Jack Ohly hacked away at the most
stubborn bittersweet, poison ivy, deadly
nightshade and “trees of heaven”
(Ailanthus) on the fences along the east
side and behind Project Apoyo. Alex
inspired the Friends of Lenzi Park to
organize a community event to raise
money for the kids at LEAP. The event
featured activities including face painting on Alex’s head, drumming on paint
cans, laying paving stones at the ends of
the path, as well as food, raffles, silent
auction, and poetry readings.
Two Lenzi sisters, Shirley Lenzi
Persico and Evelyn Lenzi Severino with
her husband, Louis, worked tirelessly
week after week in memory of their
brother, planting three mounds of trees
and perennials in front of the fence of
invasives along the east side. On the
west side, park neighbors Beverly
(continued on page 8)
3
A New Look At An Old Park
my dog and I climbed past a dumpster
and over a large metal barrier to enter
the woods. This is a public park, but
almost no one knows that it exists or
that it is a city-owned resource. Kim
and I scrambled up a steep path, rutted
by tire tracks. Our exploration, and each
trip to the park that followed, yielded
abundant information about this place:
enormous oaks and tulip poplars tower
over clear springs and woodland wetlands. Wide trails ascend a traprock
ridge with views, when the leaves are
down, to the Sound and the sunset.
Wild turkeys, many songbirds and
amphibians visit the park, or permanently reside there. We saw the tracks of
raccoons, deer, and the signs of coyotes.
The one thing we didn’t see on our visits was other people. We explored an
invisible park.
No signs proclaim the existence of
this park, no inviting entrances welcome users, no maps reveal its trails.
While the circumstances of its origins
and factors since then have conspired to
keep this park just out of public view
“No Trespassing” signs make the park
unwelcoming.
4
and unknown to most
people in New Haven,
including the many residents who live within
walking distance of it, a
small group of dedicated citizens is working to
bring it to light. This
group invited Yale
School of Forestry and
Environmental Studies
to develop an assessment of the park as part
of Professor Bill Burch’s
Community
Forestry
class. Kim and I, mem- Barriers keep
bers of that class, had
chosen to take on the project.
The park Kim and I scrambled into
is called Bishop Woods. After it was
donated to the city of New Haven as a
bird sanctuary in 1928 by local ornithologist Dr. Louis Bishop, it slipped almost
immediately out of the public eye.
Because only a few dedicated birders
knew of it, it quickly became a park that,
to most, existed only on paper.
Straddling the New Haven/ East Haven
town line, the park, which is entirely
owned by the City of New Haven, has
always caused jurisdictional confusion.
Whether by design or by default, the
management strategy for Bishop Woods
has been to “leave it alone.” It appears
that as interest in birding waned after
Bishop’s death, so did visits to Bishop
Woods. People were excluded from the
park, not by regulations or physical barriers but by lack of awareness of its existence. Over time it became a dumping
ground for garbage and a haven for a
few teenagers up to mischief. Lack of
frequent use of the park by walkers,
birders, joggers and others resulted in
social vacuum that allowed the proliferation of illegal activities, like dumping
and, eventually, ATV riding. Now “No
Trespassing” signs and barricades
designed to keep out troublemakers
make even law-abiding visitors feel that
they might be entering a private preserve.
Phot0s by Rosi Kerr
by Arriving at the Bishop Woods School,
Rosi my project partner and I pulled into a
Kerr parking lot behind the building. Kim,
ATV’s, and visitors, out of Bishop Woods.
Bishop Woods has enormous
potential. It’s woodland trails and ridges
offer a wonderful escape from the city
streets. State Representative Bob
Megna, who lives on the northern edge
of the park, wandered through it with
us and found, to his delight, a turtle,
which he said was his ninth such find.
Representative Megna, neighbor Joy
Sherman and F&ES Assistant Dean Jane
Coppock make up a core of people
working to bring Bishop Woods into
public view. Together, these neighbors
have a vision: to make the park visible.
For me, the Bishop Woods project
was eye opening. The issues faced by
the park are the same as those faced by
protected areas around the world: tight
budgets, invasive activity, rich natural
resources and the interface of people
and wild places are global challenges. At
the end of the term, presenting our
results to a broad group of community
members, I saw that the potential for
change in places like Bishop Woods
existed even without financial inputs.
Looking at problems from a new perspective was part of the solution.
Instead of seeing the challenges, the
people working on Bishop Woods see
its assets. By investing their energy in
the park, they hope to build community
around it. This hope is real here in New
Haven, and is just as real anywhere in
the world.
An Interview with Filmmaker Bill Finnegan
Seeing Heroes Through the Camera’s Lens
As a graduate student I worked as an
education intern at URI for three semesters, working with the Outdoor Spaces As
Learning Places program. During my
fourth semester Colleen, knowing that I
had a background and interest in videography, hired me to document that part of
URI’s work. I followed a complete semester with the Fair Haven school and,
instead of teaching, hung out in the back
of the room with a video camera on my
shoulder, trying to capture the important
essence of what when on. The aim was to
record how the program worked and create a sort of highlight video that could be
used to illustrate URI’s work to train
future interns, capture outside interest or
drum up funding.
That summer I had the much greater
challenge of documenting the more
diverse greenspace program. The varying
spaces, different experiences of each group
and the various roles and characters associated with each green space made it
much less straightforward than the education program video. Each project moved
at its own pace and rhythm. Because we
could not capture all fifty greenspace stories, each of which was worth a film of it’s
own, Colleen and I had the unenviable
task of narrowing our focus down to a few
main sites, chosen because they were
diverse and helped us explore all the elements of URI’s work.
When we finished, we were very
interested in the video reaching a wider
audience. We wanted to share the URI
model and the accomplishments of these
citizens, not to mention the wonderful
stories of each greenspace. We also felt
that the process of sharing them would
help express how important believe they
are. We feel the film captures the critical
role of ordinary citizens and the ability of
each American to make change happen in
our own city.
We discovered “Natural Heroes,” a
PBS series designed to showcase environmentally themed documentaries produced
by independent producers around the
country. To our delight, they accepted the
video for national distribution.
The film is the story of three
Greenspaces, made up of three main stories following the development of green
spaces and a series of smaller vignettes
that capture special stories. We followed
Read Street, Oyster Point and a group at
Newhall and Division Streets. Each
Greenspace is in a different stage, each
neighborhood is unique and each takes on
the challenge a little differently. Read
Street takes us through the design
charette, when the spark of seeing the
”When the video is aired on
Public Television, I hope it helps
invigorate people in cities across
the country, cities just like New
Haven, to see what is possible.
I hope it gets them excited about
the potential of their neighborhood and helps them see nature
all around them in their city
and their lives.“
potential of the place happens. Oyster
Point connects us to the city’s past, and to
the larger environment of the Sound. And
Newhall Street was blank slate where the
energy and enthusiasm of the group had
an instant invigorating effect in the community.
The structure of the greenspace program, very grassroots and community
driven, is the key to its success. The program responds to community needs,
wants and interests. Communities might
see public spaces as a resource, but the
program helps open their eyes to the
potential of those places in a way that
empowers communities to claim them as
their own. The process of making the
video seemed to contribute to this momentum: it made people feel like what they
were doing was more important, it
affirmed their commitment to the work.
New Haven is a surprising city, with
incredible open spaces and parks that
most people don’t see, even when they live
beside them. Like all American cities, it
also has many challenges and has been
through a lot of ups and downs. The more
downs a neighborhood has been through,
the more important the role that the
greenspace program plays. The people in
low-income neighborhoods have been at
the receiving end of environmental burdens, and it is a powerful to see those very
people rising to the incredible challenge
they face and using the environment as a
way of connecting to each other and
reclaiming their places.
When the video is aired on Public
Television, I hope it helps invigorate people in cities across the country, cities just
like New Haven, to see what is possible. I
hope it gets them excited about the potential of their neighborhood and helps them
see nature all around them in their city
and their lives. Most of all I hope that
people who watch the film see their own
potential to take action, improving the
places they live, empowering their communities as they do. URI is about supporting residents as they improve the
quality of life for themselves by improving
their urban environment. Hopefully the
film will make this process more tangible
to people in cities all over the country, and
help them see their city not just for what it
is but for what it could be.
To see a brief clip of the film, please
visit the URI website at http://www.
yale.edu/uri/.
Bill Finnegan was interviewed for this
piece by Editor Rosi Kerr. In 2003, Bill,
a Yale F&ES graduate, and fellow graduate Pete Land founded Tamarack
Media, a multi-media production firm
based in Burlington, Vermont that specializes in environmental communication. For more information see
www.tamarackmedia.org.
5
The City as a Classroom: Changing the
Vision of Urban Youth Through Education
by “In the end, we will conserve only what we
Justin love. We love only what we understand. We
Pegnataro will understand only what we are taught”
–Baba Dioum
In New Haven, as in many cities around
the country, we are surrounded by
nature: Everyday we walk by plants
growing in the cracks of a sidewalk,
sparrows nest on a window ledge or
even a peregrine falcon hunting pigeons
over a downtown street. While our
urban landscape does not offer vast
stretches of pristine wilderness, it is part
of a unique ecosystem, rich in species.
For many urban youth however, nature
can seem a far off place.
In urban America, and all over
America for that matter, there seems to
be a growing disconnect in our relationship to nature. What used to be common everyday childhood experiences in
nature—playing in a stream, digging in
dirt, rambling in small patches of
woods—have often been replaced by
vicarious experiences provided by television, video games and movies.
Nature, a place of relaxation and recreation for many people, has become a
place of discomfort for many city
dwellers. Worse, nature in the urban
landscape is often overlooked. Richard
Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods,
raises a growing concern about the
extinction of a single “species”, the child,
in the open spaces of America. He
believes that despite a growing body of
evidence demonstrating nature’s role in
healthy development, fewer and fewer
American children are exploring our
open space resources. If this is the case,
then how can we help our children
reconnect and find value in the landscape again? As Senegalese poet Baba
Dioum believes, the answer lies in education.
Teaching our children about acid
rain, holes in the ozone layer, and
nuclear waste creates an overwhelming
impression of a grim forecast of our
future. It is no wonder children taught
about these dire issues express feelings
6
of disempowerment and apathy. In
world that surrounds them.
order to train the next generation of
The most exciting aspect of Open
stewards we must, as David Sobel sugSpaces is that the students who enter
gests in Beyond Ecophobia, “give children
into the program leave profoundly
an opportunity to bond with the naturaffected. Their relationships to nature,
al world, to learn to love it and feel comtheir community and themselves are
fortable in it, before being asked to heal
redefined through their experiences
its wounds.” URI’s education program,
with local open spaces, community
Open Spaces as Learning Places, is built
stewards, and Yale School of Forestry
around this concept. It strives to give
and Environmental Studies interns. The
students the opportunity to develop a
program reinforces their sense that their
connection to and an understanding of
neighborhood is important and that
their surroundings.
Open Spaces
as Learning Places
is designed to take
advantage of New
Haven’s unique
ecology and social
history. Part of the
reason our programming is so
successful is that
our local approach
is relevant to the
daily lives of our
students. Instead
of focusing on
Ranger Dan Barvir and an OSLP student experience the Mill
distant rainforests River.
or artic tundra,
we teach them about the nature that
their experiences in it are valuable.
exists in their own backyard. Children
Open Spaces allows children to
are often surprised to learn that cities
develop a relationship to their environare a type of ecosystem and nature is all
ment through knowledge and direct
around them.
contact. Knowledge of natural processes
The program builds awareness and
like nutrient cycling, food webs, and
connection to the local environment
forest succession open new realms of
gradually. We begin with the familiar,
understanding. This knowledge transstarting with exploring the schoolyard,
forms their understanding of a vacant
and then moving to a URI Greenspace
lot, from perceiving it as a piece of
site, a local city park, a nearby river, a
derelict land into seeing it as an ecosyspond and finally ending at a historic
tem with thriving plant and animal life.
cemetery. This unit-by-unit approach
Through field trips to local schoolgradually expands the focus from
yards, Greenspaces, parks, rivers, ponds
neighborhoods to communities and
and cemeteries, the students directly
experience their landscape. During
finally to a watershed perspective of the
these trips, we challenge our students to
environment. We have found that
release their preconceptions of the expebuilding this knowledge base and
rience: Often the experience can comawareness of their environment is
pletely redefine their perceptions of
essential to our students’ developing a
their city.
positive relationship with the natural
“My favorite part is when we went canoeing, we saw a turkey vulture, blue jays,
robins, and a bald eagle”
–Philip Morrison, East Rock School.
Knowledge of natural processes and
directly experiencing the environment
work in synergy. When an individual is
familiar with, and understands their
environment, they reach a point where
they can emotionally invest in a positive
relationship with that environment. At
URI we believe this relationship is a
prerequisite to the establishment of
feelings of ownership and stewardship
for the environment.
spaces reclaimed by residents now serve
as classrooms for our Open Spaces as
Learning Places program.
Each semester, four graduate student interns are hired from the Yale
School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies (F&ES) to assist with teaching.
They serve as role models for the students we teach. The inclusion of the
interns inspires our New Haven students to achieve, and grounds dreams of
academic success in reality. For the
interns, it can be en eye opening experience to work in communities that surround Yale. It is an opportunity to contribute to their adopted community and
their own neighborhood and community, students see the exciting potential of
their home place with new eyes.
The future stewards of this country
are now sitting in its classrooms, often
in cities a lot like New Haven. By teaching these students about large scale
environmental problems that are far
from the experience of the student,
problems with solutions that seem if
anything further away, we create yet
another indirect experience of nature. In
contrast, by studying our places in our
neighborhoods, we get kids (and the
adults working with them) out of their
homes, away from the television and
Phot0s by Justin Pegnataro
East Rock students learn how urban rivers work...
The students also meet, learn from,
and are inspired by, local environmental
activists at nearby Community
Greenspaces, who show the children
what they have done in their own greenspaces. The implicit message of these
meetings is as powerful as the explicit
messages: students see that people like
them and their families have invested
time, energy and labor in their neighborhoods. They see the pride in resident’s faces when they tour a reclaimed
lot. Through seeing first-hand how
their neighbors have taken responsibility for the condition of their local landscape, they learn the meaning of stewardship. Conversely, residents are
encouraged to continue to maintain
open spaces as they see their neighborhood children enjoying and learning
science from their hard work. The
...and how fish swim.
to understand the realities of life and
work in New Haven, an understanding
these graduate students take with them
to their pursuits after Yale and around
the world.
For the New Haven school students, the programs provide them with
skills that will help them succeed. By
exposing them to quality science education at a young age, we hope not only to
equip them with technical skills but also
to encourage them to believe in their
own ability to comprehend the subject.
Real, hands-on experience helps engage
them and show that science can be fun,
and does not take place only in a traditional classroom. Their healthy development depends on feelings of empowerment, ownership, and stewardship as
much as it does on scholastic achievement. As they watch and engage with
into their landscape, directly experiencing nature as it is in their city. With their
hands immersed in pond water, their
noses up against a tree or watching an
osprey on its nest they see that there are
real experiences to be had, worthwhile
experiences, here in their city. They see
both the areas that need improvement
and the wonderful, positive resources
that surround them. For the first time,
many see their city as a vibrant, living
ecosystem. It is this vision that will, we
hope, inspire them to continued
achievement in their own lives, and continued stewardship of their places. In
the words of Marimar Roman, a student
at East Rock School, “I had a great time,
I will always think of all the things I have
learned and heard… I can’t wait to learn more.”
Justin Pegnataro is URI’s Environmental
Education Coordinator.
7
Capturing Imagination in An Urban Park
Phot0 by Peter Otis
(continued from page 3)
tree to Frank’s Hardware as it
McClure and Louis Savenelli
closed in October, Friends
sanded and painted the iron
voted on a title for the mural:
fence and tended the flag and
“Imagine…” Two weeks later,
the barrels of flowers around
we added three dragonflies to
the Joseph Lenzi memorial
the mural while Tony Falcone
across from their homes. The
completed the plaque, listing
2003 URI intern, Maura
the groups that had conLeahy, organized the last
tributed.
plantings of a meditative garAfter all the hard work
den of witch-hazel, ilex,
and success we’d achieved our
cedars, blueberries and other
progress was threatened
native shrubs in the former
when we discovered that a
sand box. Alex helped Chris
leaky roof was damaging the
Oyzck place small boulders of Sara Ohly and Alex Bragg describe their vision of the
mural. The group rallied to
native red granite next to the park to visitors.
protect the work we had
paint and support from Frank’s
garden. Black-eyed Susans (rubeckia), a
done, once again showing our commitHardware enabled us to finish the mural
native perennial, gave a wash of yellow
ment to the park and the vision that the
before the first frost.
to the park from midsummer to mid-fall.
mural represented. We coordinated
with Ed Bonilla at Project Apoyo,
Imagine… Planting an Oak
Fourth Phase: The Mural
Catholic Charities, The Historic
Since the first meeting of the
In the fourth phase, Project Apoyo
Wooster Square Association and conAssociation, Lenzi Park has continued to
agreed to participate in the design and
cerned neighbors to save the mural by
evolve, and to thrive. During the sumpainting of a mural on their back wall,
repairing the roof. Beverly McClure
mer of 2004, Alex, Cordalie Benoit (FES
which faces the park, under the guidbeautifully described how many of us
2001), and her husband David Eliscu
ance of muralist Tony Falcone. Friends
felt about Lenzi Park and the mural
created a bed of thorny, hardy shrubs,
of Lenzi Park, including Alex, the Lenzi
when she wrote to Catholic Charities: “I
primarily rosa rugosa, to protect the
sisters, and URI intern Christian
am one of many in the neighborhood
mural from ball playing or graffiti. In
McMillen met weekly at Project Apoyo
interested in preserving not only the
the spring of 2005, Alex helped Mary
with Tony Falcone through September
mural but also the heart of the neighAlice Lamb teach students from
and early October to come up with a
borhood and the family that has created
Conte/West Hills School about Lenzi
vision for the 90' x 20' wall. Alex
the mural. My effort and the effort of
Park in the Open Spaces as Learning
recounts the story of the impasse when
my 87 year old Mother were modPlaces program. Learning about the URI
the choices narrowed down to two very
est…But, we contributed what we were
model as part of a staff retreat in June,
different visions that divided the group
able… to transform a dream in to a realFES staff planted grape vines along the
in half. To resolve the conflict, Tony
ity. The creation of the mural remains
east fence. In July, Dr. Gabriele Urban,
composed a third scheme combining
one of the main unifying events in the
visiting obstetrician from Rome, joined
elements of both, that was graciously
history of the restoration of Lenzi Park.
the Friends of Lenzi Park to plant a
accepted by all. Once the vast wall was
The mural, once preserved will relay a
specimen red oak. As he watered the
power washed and primed, a grid of
message to generations of the future
tree with his one year old son Samuel
chalk lines made it possible, under
that in this place, a diverse group was
during the weeks before and after his
Tony’s good-natured direction, to
able to work together to achieve a comwife Nicoletta gave birth to their daughsketch the landscape of river in the foremon goal and that their message of
ter, Matilda, he vowed to plant a tree
ground and mountains in the backhope was sustained.”
everywhere he lived and to return to
ground with a fanciful globe in the cenSara Ohly, PhD’ 94 in anthropology has
Lenzi Park when Samuel and the tree had
ter. Carlos and Nelson of Project Apoyo,
lived in Wooster Square since 1968. She
grown. As Alex and I took turns watering
the artists on the scaffolding, playfully
taught anthropology at Connecticut College
the oak and other plantings through the
gave us a Puerto Rico larger than Cuba.
and Wesleyan, 1995 to 2000, is now a
drought that summer, we experienced what
When children crossing the path from
research affiliate at YCIAS, and serves on
dog walkers and those crossing the park
LEAP to Conte/West Hills school
the Board of URI, the New Haven Land
were telling us: this meditative, serene place
declared Africa too small, Carlos,
Trust, The Historic Wooster Square
instilled a sense of peace.
Nelson, and Tony Falcone enlarged it.
Association, and Friends of Lenzi Park.
At the ceremony dedicating the oak
Beautiful fall days and full supplies of
8
What Belongs? Natives and Invasives
in Beaver Ponds
century, most likely as seeds included in
ships ballast materials.
Why are species that look so
benign, like phragmites and loosestrife,
widely considered by ecologists to be a
major threat to local environments?
Phragmites is typical: it spreads very
quickly, both by seed dispersal and via
its ability to regenerate from broken off
“rhizomes”, specialized stems that grow
horizontally instead of vertically.
Phot0 by Colleen Sullivan
At this time of year, an early morning
walk in Beaver Ponds Park includes
watching the sun slowly illuminate the
waving reeds on the far shore. As the
wind ruffles their tasseled tops, red
wing black birds enthusiastically
announce spring, each clinging to a
thick stem. These reeds look appealing,
even beautiful. Environmentally speaking they are anything but.
Phragmites australis (‘frag-miteees’), the Latin name for this graceful
reed, is an introduced species and an
invasive. According to a Clinton era
executive order on the topic, the term
“’invasive species’ means an alien
species whose introduction does or is
likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.”
These species can be any living organism: plant, animal, fungi, bacteria,
microbes etc. We are surrounded by
introduced species, species that are not
native to our local area and are not necessarily
aggressively
harmful.
Sometimes we have become so accustomed to them we think they are native.
Common introduced species include the
ubiquitous house sparrow, the starling
and the bullfrog. Invasive species, in
contrast, are introduced species that are
by definition harmful. They usually
behave aggressively, out-competing
native species that are integral to the
natural system. Many common invasive
species, purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) among them, were introduced
intentionally, usually for a specific purpose. Loosestrife was brought from
Europe as a medicinal treatment. In the
1890s, one hundred starlings were
released into Central Park by a group
determined to populate the Americas
with every species mentioned in
Shakespeare’s work. The starling is now
the most numerous bird in North
America. Many other plant and insect
species arrived here accidentally, in
transported soil, on shipments of lumber or simply wedged into the tread of a
travelers boot. Phragmites was introduced from Eurasia in the 18th or 19th
Phragmites in Beaver Ponds Park.
Phragmites quickly forms dense mats of
roots and stems that block out light and
make it impossible for other wetland
species to grow amongst them. This
ability drastically lowers species diversity within wetlands, which in turn makes
it much more difficult for the many reptiles, insects, birds, mammals, fish and
amphibians that inhabit wetlands, and
frequently depend on the plants phragmites out-competes, to make a living.
Very few native species are able to consume the fibrous reed, making it essentially a filler which crowds out food
species that the system depends on. In
addition phragmites tends to absorb
water differently then native species,
altering the hydrology typical of a
healthy wetland.
If phragmites and other invasives
are problematic, how do we work to fix
it? That’s the hard part. Eradicating
invasive species is notoriously challenging. While there are sometimes reasonably effective chemical and physical
means of controlling phragmites, they
are often very costly. In New Haven
phragmites is sometimes mowed, an
attempt to give natives a leg up, but
mowing is usually only an effective way
to eradicate the species if it is followed
by burning or covering with black plastic, both of which are expensive and
unsightly, and might necessitate laborintensive replanting with native species.
To be most effective, these treatments
must be repeated several times, at specific times of year. In addition, some
studies indicate that mowing can help
disperse seeds, necessitating expensive
hand cutting instead.
In the long term, diligent treatment
of current invasive species and vigilence
in making sure we do not introduce new
invasives to delicate systems are the only
solutions to this persistent problem.
Each time we purchase and plant in our
yards, greenspaces and even in window
boxes, some quick research to determine
suitable native species makes a difference. When we travel, even within our
home state, taking care not to bring
back hitchhiking seeds and insects and
making a conscious decision not to
bring non-local plants back to our gardens will eventually help us rejuvenate
our local landscapes. And the diligent
work of greenspace volunteers manually clearing phragmites, purple loosestrife, tree of heaven and many other
invasive plants is a significant step in the
right direction.
For more information about invasive plant species common to southwestern Connecticut, please see visit the
URI website, where a link is available to
a complete report on this topic.
By Rosi
Kerr,
Tenley
Wurglitz
and
Colleen
Sullivan
9
2005 Hixon Fellows
Making a Difference Around the World
by Each year the Hixon Center for Urban
Rosi Ecology sponsors summer internships
Kerr designed to encourage students at Yale
School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies to pursue projects that focus on
increasing the understanding of urban
ecosystems. During the summer of 2005,
seven Hixon Fellows worked all over the
world, from the streams of Connecticut to
the refugee camps of Syria and the mangroves of Madagascar. Fellows studied
topics as far ranging as amphibian disease,
water governance and green building.
Mohamad A. Chakaki (MEM
’06) traveled to Syria where he worked
in “Neirab Camp,” a Palestinian refugee
camp. Mohamad went to Neirab to help
introduce sustainability to the camps,
which were designed as temporary
refuges but have evolved into more permanent homes. Mohamad worked for
the UNRWA, the United Nations
Agency for Palestinian Refugees. He
discovered that developing greenspaces
in such a complex environment was a
challenge. Questions of “home,” ownership and identity are not clearly
answered in Neirab, whose residents
have always thought of themselves as
visitors and yearn for their home in
Palestine. Mohamad attempted to
untangle how to speak with the refugees
about environmental sustainability
when there are so many other priorities.
Joel Creswell (MESc ’06) analyzed water samples from four streams
in the three main watersheds of the City
of New Haven for mercury content. By
analyzing streams in both forested and
urbanized landscapes, Joel hoped to
determine whether different land uses
affected mercury concentrations in
streams. Preliminary results show that
mercury is inversely correlated with
watershed urbanization under dry conditions. Joel expects storm data to show
the opposite relationship. Joel’s research
will help urban planners and stormwater managers understand the impacts of
urban land use on the levels of mercury—a harmful pollutant—in streams.
10
Tomas Delgado (MEM ’06)
focused his internship on improving the
understanding of sustainable urban
building. The low density “sprawling”
neighborhoods that dominated building in the last decades of the 20th century are undesirable in terms of energy,
land use, material use, and also in terms
of less tangible factors like the lack of
“sense of place” they promote among
their inhabitants. By studying new
designs, like that of downtown
Mansfield,
Connecticut,
Tomas
attempted to understand how rating
systems like LEED® can be used to evaluate the sustainability of urban design.
By working on a new rating system, the
“LAND code,” being developed at Yale,
Tomas worked to incorporate important
aspects of land use not thoroughly considered using LEED®.
Rachel Gruzen (MEM ’06)
explored the complicated challenge of
sustainable shrimp farming in
Madagascar. Armed with a video camera, Rachel explored how the growing
global demand for shrimp is affecting
the diverse, pristine mangrove shorelines of the East African country. In her
research, Rachel traced how the government and aquaculture companies are
addressing the social wellbeing of their
employees. She was especially interested in determining which factors —community development programming,
town planning, partnership-building,
and policy frameworks— are tending to
encourage socially and environmentally
sustainable shrimp farming in
Madagascar. The result of Rachel’s
work is a documentary.
Katherine Hamilton (MEM ’06)
traveled to Central America to research
how payments for watershed services
might improve water supplies and
watershed management in urban systems. Cities around the world depend
on local watersheds for their water but,
until recently, few urban residents and
municipalities have connected proper
management of watersheds with
improved water quality. In response to
rising concerns about water quality and
quantity, various municipalities around
the world have turned to the use of payment for watershed services programs,
where water users pay a fee for beneficial management of local watershed
land. Kate’s study examines two cases of
payment for watershed services, one in
Heredia, Costa Rica and the other in
Quito, Ecuador.
Manja Holland (PhD Candidate)
spent her summer investigating emerging disease in amphibians in
Northeastern Connecticut. Emerging
wildlife diseases are of concern both
from conservation and human health
perspectives, as many can be transferred
between
wildlife
and
people.
Urbanization and other forms of
anthropogenic change have been linked
with increased emergence of wildlife
disease, but the mechanisms underlying
these patterns remain poorly understood. By understanding how echinostomes, a widespread amphibian
macroparasite, impact green frogs
(Rana clamitans), Manja hopes to contribute to the understanding of the
mechanisms by which diseases, especially those that can be transferred to
humans, can emerge as a result of
urbanization.
Robyn Meeks (MEM ’05)
worked at the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP)
Headquarters in New York City with
the Water Governance Sub-Practice.
The Water Governance Sub-Practice
promotes sound and effective governance of water resources. In this capacity, Robyn assisted in activities pertaining to transboundary waters and integrated water resources management
(IWRM). Studying IWRM, she
researched the outcomes, lessons
learned, and achievements of UNDP’s
transboundary rivers initiative. Robyn
participated in the planning of community stakeholder dialogues to empower
and involve historically marginalized
groups in decision-making processes via
river basin organizations.
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Newsletter of the
Urban Resources Initiative
at the
Yale School of Forestry &
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SPRING
2006
VOL.16, No. 2
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