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- Neighborhood House Garden Park transformed a blighted vacant lot into a vibrant growing space.
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- Neighborhood House Garden Park in bloom.
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- Mayor Tom Barrett with Neighborhood House Executive Director Jeff Martinka
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- Neighborhood House Executive Director Jeff Martinka with Bard Bleaser who spearheaded the desing and building of the park.
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- The park was built on a cold April day in 2015 with volunteers from Wisconsin Landscaping Contractors Assn led by The Green Team.
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- Friends and neighbors dig in to help
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- Neighborhood House youth take care of the raised beds.
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- Neighborhood House nature educators host programs in the park.
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- Youth give the park “thumbs up”
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- SHAPR literacy partnered to create a magnificent mural for the park.
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- A neighborhood gardener.
Neighborhood House is proud to receive a 2016 Mayor’s Design Award for its Garden Park, a project that transformed a blighted city lot into a community garden and outdoor education space for children and families.
Neighborhood House Garden Park was built in 2015 in a vacant lot on the corner of N. 27th Street and Richardson Place, just a block away from its main site in an area poised for redevelopment. Wisconsin Landscape Contractors Association and The Green Team contributed to design and construction of raised garden beds, benches, and a natural playground. SHARP Literacy and Milwaukee artist Sally Duback spearheaded the making of a sparkling mosaic mural that enlivens the space with images of vegetables and self-portraits of Neighborhood House children.
“The development of the Garden Park speaks to Neighborhood House’s commitment to the near west side, and to its long-term impact,” says Neighborhood House Executive Director Jeff Martinka. “It’s a community where people give back, and give more, in particular Bradley Blaeser, who worked with us a youth counselor, and returned a decade later with his landscaping company to make this vision a reality.”
