There used to be a big nonsensical loop of interstate highway
through the middle of downtown Providence. Some years ago, they rerouted the
highway more sensibly, and tore down the old highway (which ran through some
really prime downtown real estate). It’s mostly just green now: grass, and
weeds, and wildflowers, and now and then (especially after a good heavy rain)
huge angry geese.
When Boston redeveloped after the Big Dig, they left a nice
strip of green through the heart of the city, and it’s a beautiful long narrow
park snaking through the downtown area.
Providence won’t be that smart, I fear. I’m sure developers
are already sparring for the land. But, for now, it’s mostly open space.
As I walk down Wickenden Street toward the Point Street
Bridge, I cross a corner of this open space. And this is what I encountered
about a month ago:
Some local person – “Pip” – had claimed a few square feet of
it, to grow sunflowers and cosmos and various other charming odds and ends.
Within a week or so, some other people had joined Pip and
made their own tiny garden beside his own.
I wanted to see this pirate enterprise prosper. I wanted to
see ten or twenty more little pirate gardens spring up by Pip’s garden.
But gardening is hard.
Weeds and wildflowers can grow all by themselves without care; garden flowers need
water and cultivation. Back about a week or so ago, things were getting pretty
dry down there, and Pip’s garden was suffering
No one ever said that piracy was an easy life.
But Pip learned his lesson. It’s been a pretty hot summer,
and Pip has been keeping everything watered nicely since then. The sunflower
especially is very cute (as you can see).
I’d like to see more of this. I’d like to see more people
reclaiming unused land, in vacant lots and by the roadsides, for flowers and
whatever they wish. I’ve tried scattering seeds and planting things in odd
places myself, but nothing ever seems to come of my attempts. (I should stick
to wildflowers, I suppose.)
Pip’s kind of piracy is the kind of piracy I can really
support.
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