On the corner of South Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard in Bridgeton, near the Alms Center and the Bethlehem Revival Temple, sits a previously vacant lot. In its earlier incarnation, it held a gas station and a house – a house that was briefly a biker gang hangout spot from what I was told. Both structures were demolished, although you can still see the house on Google Earth:
More recently, the lot sat empty and underutilized. The American Littoral Society saw this as an opportunity to turn this spot into usable green space, and partnered with New Jersey Future and the Southeast Gateway Community Steering Committee to discuss how it might serve a purpose in the community. Together, we decided that the lot could benefit from 6 planter boxes filled with native plants, a line of trees at the end adjacent to the church parking lot, a rain garden, several benches, and at least two larger trees to provide shade. Through these changes, the space could infiltrate stormwater running off the road and parking lot into the aquifer, beautify the space with flowering plants, trees, and painted planter boxes, and provide a cool space for residents to sit down in the shade.
After coming up with a site plan using the help of the Rutgers Water Resources Center, The Littoral Society, our summer Restoration Corps interns, and about 60 kids from the ExCEL program school got together to build the planter boxes, fill them with soil and native plants, paint them, and plant the trees. We are super grateful for all of their help, we couldn’t have gotten so much work done in a single day without them!
Next step was to start work on the rain garden. It needed to be quite large to handle all of the stormwater runoff that would be coming from the parking lot and the street. Thanks to Rutgers, the City of Bridgeton, and the Restoration Corps interns for digging out and leveling the garden bed in the sweltering heat with us! Because the soil was so compacted, which would have made it difficult for the water to infiltrate into the ground, we had to dig way, way down, until we saw part of the foundation of the house that used to be there, and then add sand and compost.
Last steps, on an equally hot day, were to finish leveling the bed, plant the native plants, and give them a bit of water to start them off. We had an amazing group of interns this year and we are so grateful for all of the hard work they did on this project!
Now all that’s left to do is finish building some benches and planting a few more trees. Keep an eye on this page for a ribbon cutting ceremony when it’s all done. If you find yourself in Bridgeton, come check it out!