Growing Resources: A Little Help Goes a Long Way
 Over on the City's near eastside there lies a wide, grassy esplanade on Sturm Street, running from Arsenal to State Street. Long ignored by the City, in years past it was a neglected, weedy, and trash-filled eyesore that attracted problems, like bugs to a garden.
The strip was a blemish on the whole neighborhood and sat as a sad reminder of better days.
Today, the Sturm Street Esplanade stands out as a model of what private and public partnering can do to for neighborhoods and community gardens.
In 1992, one of the neighbors, Ann-Marie Hanlon, started a small community garden in vacant lots on Vermont Street. She rallied others in the neighborhood to get involved. In 1994, clean up work on the esplanade had begun with the help of many community resources. By 1996, it had been transformed from an eyesore to an eyecatcher with the help of local landscape designers, an architect, a contractor, and many other people.
Today, perennial gardens fill the rounded corners at both ends of the Esplanade. In addition to the original sycamores, twenty flowering crabapples have been planted as well as forty-four densiflora yews. The neighborhood association has had concrete sidewalks poured and installed park benches, creating a comfortable public area where people can sit under big, shady trees and enjoy the flowers and greenery.
It is yet one more shining example of how community gardens can help plant the seeds of neighborhood revitalization.
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