Pine St. beginnings
Before its current net-zero strawbale headquarters, before its longtime office at United Presbyterian Church, before VINES even had a name, there was an empty city lot at 15 Pine St. An empty lot defined by patches of pavement and muddy puddles. And for an initial group of volunteers, a distinct lack of gardens.
In 2006, one of those neighbors was Pine St. resident Kim Cuddy. Kim knew the area from living there herself as well as door-to-door canvassing for community projects in the city of Binghamton. She independently had experience with gardening and had participated in projects related to low income housing. Surveys and interviews in these areas asked about what people would want to do to improve their neighborhoods.
Kim recalls that this period was during the Matt Ryan administration in Binghamton, and that there was “a lot of desire to do things to improve curb appeal and help people clean up their houses and their front lawns.” Kim spoke of a distinct energy circulating in Binghamton around 2006-2007. “A lot of people were feeling very active and like wanting to really improve things, just in any sort of way that we could….it felt like, because there was an administration that was progressive and in support of change…it just felt like things were more possible.”
Herself one of those people wanting to improve things, she knew others that wanted to do the same. Mutual friends socialized around the idea and even explored their connections within the city’s administration. It was during this time that Kim and a handful of others connected to put a theory to the test. If they just went ahead and installed some raised beds in this unused lot, would people want to grow some gardens? Could it be that easy?
And at first, it was. After a plan was made, the group of Pine St. volunteers gathered with shared tools, wood for the raised beds and soil donated from the city. They simply started out, assembled garden beds and planted some seedlings. Soon enough, Pine St. neighbors were tending to the new raised garden beds. “It was just really nice…Sometimes from my house, I would look out the window and there would be, like, neighbors from the apartment building that would just be out there watering, just taking care of the garden. It was just a cool thing. Super sweet.”
For one whole growing season, the initial plan was working. But before too long, a central issue became more pressing. Who owns the land and what’s to stop them from suddenly deciding to develop it one day? To uproot the work these volunteers were growing?
The Pine St. gardeners became aware that the lot owners were entertaining purchase offers to turn 15 Pine St. into a parking lot. Kim knew from similar work in California communities, “that’s always the issue with community gardens.” VINES had permission from the owner of the lot at the time, but the future was very uncertain and VINES was looking to plant some deep roots. The future wasn’t particularly sunny (it was already a relatively shady lot) and it would most likely become a parking lot.
It was around this very same time that another, unknown to them, Pine St. neighbor was doing her own work to salvage a separate, neglected lot. Angela Testani already owned a home on the street, and came across the opportunity to purchase a nearby, freshly demolished lot for a low price. Angela grew up on Pine St. with her Italian immigrant grandparents and a lot of Italian neighbors. Her childhood memories of Pine St. were defined by the gardens her family cultivated, living off the land on Pine St. “The garden was always, always, always, always, always the pivotal part to our family. Tomatoes were never so sweet in my life.”
Greatly influenced by her grandfather’s philosophy, Angela remembers him with his broken English-Italian accent sharing his lessons from Depression era America: “the jobs, she’s a come and she goes..But once you get the job, then you got to buy land. (And I’m thinking house.) He says, no, you got to buy land, because once you get land, you can get a garden, and your family will never grow hungry.” So when she had the opportunity to influence the character of her block, she knew it was “Never, never, never, never, never, never meant for a parking lot.”
After she put her bid in on the lot, and after she unexpectedly won the bid, she waited. Angela was getting various offers to turn the plot into a parking lot. She had made attempts to work with other organizations that might help her develop it into something beautiful. They weren’t interested. Meanwhile, people were using the recently demolished lot as a garbage dump, disposing of tires and other car parts.
While weighing what to do with the land, or if she could do anything with it at all being so rocky, Angela one day received a call from someone at VINES. Amelia LoDolce, the now Executive Director, then neighborhood gardener, had gotten Angela’s number while she was working for the city. Amelia told her about their programs and Angela did her homework. She hadn’t heard of them before, but “something about my grandfather said, hmm…something was just gnawing at me that it’s worth paying attention to.”
When the question finally came from VINES, ‘Would you like to lease it to us?’ Angela responded with the confidence of a mutual prayer being answered: “Sure. A dollar a year.” For Angela, this coincidence completed the leap of faith she took when she purchased the lot. VINES was now able to move those initial Pine St. gardens just up the block, from 15 to 67 Pine St., and thus secure a garden site they could return to year after year.
Completing a journey that spanned half a block and nearly twenty years, VINES now owns the lot at 67 Pine St which was donated to the organization in 2025 from Angela Testani. Where the efforts of these initial characters converge, we can now be sure to find a garden for years to come.
STORYTELLING ARCHIVE
June 2025 – Shanel, the scotch bonnet pepper and “This came from us.”
October 2021 – Celebrating the 1st Full Year of Grow Binghamton Youth Program
September 2021- Community Gardens – A Dream Come True
July 2021 – Unexpected Sunshine & Other Side Effects of Build a Garden
November 2020 – Raising Spirits & Creating Joy through Cooking
October 2020 – Farm Share Supports Healthy Families
August 2020 – Grow Binghamton Crew 2020: Small but Mighty
July 2020 – Growing Food, Growing Community – Together with Binghamton Food Rescue
June 2020 – Jessica & Leta: Two Urban Farm Volunteers
April 2020 – Laurel Community Garden’s Peg Johnston
March 2020 – Nolan’s Reflection on Grow Binghamton Youth Program