Ruth McDaniels is creating spaces of solace in Harlem. She felt it already as she clipped back some bushes recently.
"You don't even understand how therapeutic this is," McDaniels said. "I can't speak to it. I just know it feels good."
McDaniels is the president of the Friends of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard Malls. The lifelong Harlemite tends to the street medians between West 110th and West 155th streets as needed. Volunteers help her plant twice a year.
What You Need To Know
- Ruth McDaniels helps maintain the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard Malls
- She worked with Marie Littlejohn to spruce up the major thoroughfare, continuing the effort after Littlejohn's death
- McDaniels recruits volunteers to plant in street medians twice a year
"It gives you a place to woosah, for a moment, to take a breath and, and just think outside," she said.
McDaniels' crusade for a calming, more beautiful neighborhood started in 2009. She says there was garbage everywhere.
"It was desolate and it was hopelessness,” McDaniels said. “And I just said, 'It's no way in the world that I can stay here and continue like this.'"
So she and her neighbors planted some flowers and cleaned up her block. Around 15 years ago, McDaniels met the late Marie Littlejohn, a civil rights activist and neighborhood advocate who was maintaining the street medians on the boulevard.
"She had the foresight to understand that Harlem needed to look like something, and the mental health needed to start," McDaniels said.
McDaniels has been clipping, planting and cleaning ever since. Parks are a bit of a trek from that part of Harlem, so her neighbors say the malls add a much-needed boost.
"It makes you feel comfortable, makes you feel happy when you see the plants on the corner,” said Valerie Durden, who works nearby. “When you see the pink blossom tree up the block, it's just so beautiful, just as a whole."
McDaniels has also served her tenants association and precinct council. She took the reins of the Friends association when Littlejohn died last year. It’s a mission to honor her mentor and create much-needed green space for her neighbors.
"I just think in a community where disenfranchisement has been for so long, we could, we can change the narrative," McDaniels said.
For planting gardens of serenity in Harlem, Ruth McDaniels is our New Yorker of the Week.
