It was the type of New York summer day where you feel the heat radiate from the concrete. I had walked past Maria Solá Green Space, a community garden in the Port Morris quarter of the South Bronx, before. Each time, I gazed through the locked fence door at its handful of thick brown trees that provided the promise of shade. This weekend morning, I saw its gates swung open. I walked in. I felt instant relief as I stepped into the mulchy earth.
The temperature difference under the tree shade felt like entering an air-conditioned room. I didn’t know that I had arrived just in time to become part of a plan to shape a slice of the concrete jungle into a more vibrant space for both plant and human life.
I met Grant, one of the garden’s “stewards,” or volunteers, who sported a purple “South Bronx Unite” t-shirt and a hat worthy of an excursion to the Amazon jungle. “We’re not a Parks Department garden,” Grant explained in a calm, unhurried voice as he gave me a tour. “The Department of Transportation owns this land.”
Maria Solá made the best of the fact that it was under a highway, Interstate 87. They couldn’t grow root vegetables due to the high levels of heavy metals in the soil, but they did have a blueberry shrub which would yield berries next season.
Spaces near highways are typically filled with broken glass, stubborn amounts of old plastic bottles, and the constant sounds of trucks zooming by. This space had a fish pond, dozens of meticulously planted herbs and flowers, a swing, a barbecue, and bird feeders. “Come smell the mint leaves,” Grant encouraged me.
As we chatted about the garden, a pickup truck pulled in, loaded with what I would later learn were basket willow rods—slender, tapering branches about a thumbs-width thick used to make large baskets and shelters. These gray and green rods, bushes from the Salicaea family, had small green leaves. At the bottom of each rod was a thick, sprawling root system that seemed oversized compared to their thin bodies. A skinny man with gray hair pulled into a bun, sideburns, and a sleeveless worker’s vest hopped out of the truck.
“Aresh,” the man told me as he shook my hand with a smile.
“David,” I replied, then I repeated his name. “Aresh?” I confirmed, emphasis on the first syllable.
“These have been freshly rescued from an outdoor restaurant I built during COVID across from my apartment on the Lower East Side,” this wiry, agile man told me as he pointed to the trees. New York City had begun to withdraw COVID-era permission for restaurants to have outdoor dining. The willows, along with the outdoor seating, would have to go.
I quickly learned where we would plant them. Towards the back of a garden stood a hut made out of dozens of these basket willows bent and interlocked overhead to form a domed, igloo-shaped structure.
Our job that day was to bend and shape these living willow trees to bulk up the existing willow hut. Aresh had built the hut with local children and their families as part of a nature program he hosted in the South Bronx.
“What was their fate if you hadn’t brought them up here?” I asked Aresh as I was thrust into my first task as a volunteer, and suddenly in the back of his truck hauling them out.
“Oh, Department of Transportation would have tossed them in the dump,” he said, his voice pausing at the word “dump” as if it hurt him to say it.
We would be saving lives today, then. Plant lives.
New York City would be better with more plant lives in it. My desire to support New York City’s vibrant natural ecosystem drove me into the garden that Saturday afternoon.
In 2023, on a trip to Medellín, Colombia, “the city of eternal spring,” I saw how cities could add more plant life. Over the past few years, Medellín’s city government has added millions of plants to its streets and sidewalks. The average temperature has fallen 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit as a result. Adding more plants to cities can be as effective at combating the urban heat island effect — a phenomenon that explains why cities like New York are hotter than the surrounding area — as air conditioning. Concrete and buildings absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat. This is why New York can feel like you’re baking in a stone oven, as I felt on this July day. Plants also work to sequester carbon and improve the air and soil quality.
In a city like New York, the benefits don’t stop there. More plants and soil would be a cost-effective way to prevent flooding, since soil absorbs rainwater rather than diverting it to the sewer system. Even on ordinary days, the simple fact of more green space could be important green infrastructure for protecting New York’s waterways.
When it rains more than an inch in New York, the city must discharge raw untreated sewage into the New York Harbor, or risk overflowing the sewer system. This is disastrous for marine life and makes the water unsafe for people. Green spaces like Maria Solá might help keep your feces out of the Hudson River.
The benefits go on. If anything can save New York City, it’s more plants.
As Aresh, Grant, and I dug holes in the soil to build new homes for the displaced willows, I learned that Aresh “Earth” Javadi has been fighting for this vision of a cleaner city for over a quarter century.
“Well, there was this one time,” Aresh told me as he plunged a shovel into the ground, “we created this contraption on a giant wooden coqui frog when we were defending Doña Alicia’s beloved Puerto Rican community garden, Esperanza. I would unfurl it when I chained myself to the giant frog in the garden. When the police got close to rip out the trees and crush the coqui, the contraption spilled red fabric from the frog’s head, making it look like blood.” He chuckled as he shared the story, his smile growing as he peered off with a look of nostalgia.
As we worked, he regularly waved at New Yorkers walking by the garden. The fence was swung wide open. “Come on in!” he would shout with a vibrant shot of energy. Many did, and they’d go check out the pond or chat with us as we worked. In a city with a culture of minding one’s own business, Aresh seeks to bring strangers together.
Over the hours we worked together, he told me about his art and activism to help save places like The Children’s Magical Garden in the Lower East Side. “You know the developers were doomed from the start,” Aresh told me in his bright, animated voice, “because it’s hard to win a PR battle when it’s ‘rich real estate developers versus the Children’s Magical Garden of New York.’” He went on. “The kids who use the community garden regularly were literally crying, like, tears streaming down, and these guys in suits just didn’t care.”
Children’s Magical Garden team members led by their director Kate Temple-West, Aresh’s partner, won the fight to save all of Children’s Magical Garden in a win-win settlement last year. This victory is one of hundreds he’s achieved over the decades alongside an organization called More Gardens. Together, they have advocated for communities that built gardens in low-income, predominantly Black and brown areas like the Lower East Side and the South Bronx. Many of these gardens formed in the wake of municipal neglect in the ’70s and ’80s. In these neighborhoods, landlords often burned down buildings to collect insurance money and city officials abandoned them to fill with trash and rot. They became rat kingdoms. After months or years of staring at the rubble, residents came together, cleared it up, and turned the lots into gardens. They repurposed the space to provide cleaner air, shade, healthy food, and a space for anyone to relax and enjoy a slice of nature.
In the past decade, many of these gardens have come under threat, as former landlords have sought to sell the now-valuable land to developers. Over the past 25 years Aresh has been strapping himself to trees and leading the defense of gardens from the South Bronx to the Lower East Side.
This willow hut project is Aresh’s latest fusion of art and activism. He sees willows as capable of transforming harsh, hot urban spaces into welcoming sanctuaries. As we worked, he explained how their flexible branches could be shaped into symmetrical geometry structures that provide shelter and comfort. “Basket willows bend but don’t easily break,” he told me. This biological fact of the species drives his latest vision: to reimagine the harsh cityscape by integrating willow-built structures that serve as both functional and artistic additions to the streets.
He told me about his plan to integrate these willow structures in the existing street environment. They could be stand-alone shelters, growing into little huts, much like the one we were building. His plans get as bold as fully-fledged bus shelters rooted into the sidewalk, community plazas, and children’s playgrounds.
“This living hut where people can sit and relax is just the beginning,” he told me as he bent an extra thick willow shrub as if he were weaving a basket for the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. “In this area in the South Bronx right here on Lincoln Avenue the bus shelters stare directly into the sun,” he explained. “Making a bus shelter out of these willows would provide immediate shade for those waiting for the bus.”
I began to imagine a New York City where structures built with living trees provided cleaner air and shade to those waiting for the buses, walking through community gardens, or even just on underutilized street and sidewalk space. The creative possibilities are infinite, and each structure could help cool off and clean up New York City.
This is especially needed in neighborhoods like the South Bronx, which face some of the city’s worst air quality indices and hottest summers. In addition to the lasting effects of divestment in the 20th century, this neighborhood has highways just above this community garden, a waste processing plant a few blocks away, and towering power plants nearby. Even the smell of Port Morris, which can reek of garbage on hot summer days, makes it clear how predominantly black and brown communities in New York City have been stashed with the worst effects of industry, highways, and neglect. They’ve been burdened by pollution and denied greenery and clean air. Today, one in five children from the South Bronx suffers from asthma.
“Where did you get these willow trees before planting them at the restaurant?” I asked Aresh as I went to grab the hose to water the freshly planted willows.
“They’re coppiced at willow farms by Celtic Energy Farms on Lake Ontario in Upstate New York. They’re kept in a freezer as part of a SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry willow research project.” He went on, his hands moving as if preparing to hug a bear, emphasizing how many there were. “The original idea was that, because willows mature within a few years, they could be a renewable fuel source. But with other clean energies stepping up, the large-scale willow biofuel plan hasn’t panned out. SUNY ESF has pivoted to support other greening projects with the willows. We’ve teamed up to bring them from the freezer down to New York City.”
Heading upstate didn’t seem ideal if we wanted to do this at scale in the city, but that’s when Aresh helped me connect the dots.
“We’ll use the freezer ones at first. We have a few projects around the South Bronx and the Lower East Side right now that began with frozen trees from upstate. But as huts like this grow and their branches become thicker, we can propagate them.”
Propagation – cutting of branches and replanting them somewhere else – creates unlimited potential for newly-woven, “living design” art. I was catching on. Already on our hut, I could see how the initial rods had branched out and sprouted bright green leaves. Their ability to grow quickly, which had made them attractive as a fuel source, also makes them useful for Aresh’s visions.
“Now you’re starting to understand the power of the basket willow,” he told me.
I wondered if this primordial willow hut would be the parent for dozens of more. What would we build with its branches?
Aresh grew up in Shiraz, Iran, “The City of Gardens.” When he immigrated to the United States, he brought with him his love of urban gardens and green space. “I wish I could bring a few species of willows over from Shiraz,” he joked. I imagined him at JFK airport in the baggage claim, with a shrub in a ski bag.
As he worked, he knew just where to bend them so they’d make a symmetrical arc, and knew how many centimeters apart we should plant each to make a perfect weave. As his fingers tapped each tree, his ear leaned in and he seemed to telepathically speak with them in a language I didn’t know. He seemed to me a willow whisperer.
“Make sure you give them lots of water. They love water,” Aresh instructed Grant and me as we wrapped up for the day. We’d beaten the sunset and celebrated a job well done. I left Maria Solá exuberant over what we’d accomplished that day and the possibilities to come. I had to learn more about his willow plans, and how we could make them a reality. He told me he was teaming up with a local organization called South Bronx Unite.
Two weeks later, I buzzed the second floor of an old three-story building across the street from Maria Solá, on the same block as a Manhattan-bound ramp to the Third Avenue Bridge. It was the headquarters of South Bronx Unite (SBU), a community group fighting to improve and protect the social, environmental, and economic future of the Mott Haven and Port Morris districts. If I wanted to hear more about environmental justice plans in the South Bronx, they were the ones to talk to.
I was there to meet with Arif Ullah, the Executive Director of SBU. Over email, he offered me the choice of chatting in the organization’s office or going on a walk through the waterfront, where we would collect a weekly sample of water from the Harlem River and drop it off at Randall’s Island to be tested. Of course, I chose the walk. It was the type of cloudy morning that threatened rain, so we brought our umbrellas.
Arif was calm and soft-spoken. As we walked from the waterfront, just two blocks from Maria Solá, he asked me about my story and interests. This conversation interspersed our private tour through Port Morris, the Southernmost tip of the South Bronx heading east towards Hunt’s Point and Randall’s Island.
Starting at the Harlem River, we crossed freight train tracks and dropped down a bucket with a rope to collect a water sample. “Sometimes, low-tech gets the job done,” he said. He dipped a vial into the bucket. We had the sample. We both joked that it was poop water, no doubt infected with untreated sewage from the previous day’s heavy rain.
We headed east, and he told me about SBU’s community-led vision for the waterfront, complete with native plants suited to absorbing rainwater and open park space.
Right now, though most of the Port Morris waterfront is public land owned by the New York State Department of Transportation, it’s leased by a plethora of polluting facilities that toxify the air and deteriorate public health. These facilities range from waste processing centers and last-mile warehouses to power plants and even a medical waste facility. Arif guided me over freight tracks and under barbed wire fences, pointing out what happens at each of the gray buildings we pass.
“We want to reimagine this space so that community residents have access to the waterfront and more green space.” Arif shared how the South Bronx was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. To mitigate the growing impacts of climate change and address local issues like air pollution and lack of recreational and green spaces, SBU organized community visioning sessions for the waterfront. These led to the development of the Mott Haven – Port Morris Waterfront Plan.
The plan serves multiple purposes: It creates direly-needed green space to provide relief from the chokehold of the highways and bridges while creating nature-based coastal resilience. We kept our heads on a swivel for freights as we crossed the tracks again.
Arif told me more about the neighborhood and how South Bronx Unite was born, sharing this story like an actor in flow state, his calmness transforming to excitement. Community members, fed up with the placement of one polluting facility after another, were outraged that city and state politicians were incentivizing the relocation of Fresh Direct to the South Bronx with nearly $150 million in taxpayer subsidies. Fresh Direct is a grocery delivery service, and their Bronx location serves as their “last mile” warehouse for New York City. Trucks take their products from the South Bronx out to their final destinations, bringing more pollution to an already-choked area. Community members came together to resist. Though the group lost their fight to keep Fresh Direct out, South Bronx Unite was born.
As we walked past the Fresh Direct building, he pointed over a janky fence. Off in the distance were two yellow tips: smokestacks.
We reached the Bronx Kill, a small waterway connecting the Harlem River to the East River between Port Morris and Randall’s Island. He pointed to a large vacant building. Until about two years ago, it was a printing facility for the New York Post and Wall Street Journal. “We imagine turning that space into a green workforce development center where South Bronx residents can learn skills that can land them living wage jobs.”
We dropped off the water sample on Randall’s Island, where it would get analyzed along with samples from other sites. We headed back towards South Bronx Unite HQ, this time taking a major street complete with a charter school just a few hundred feet from a highway interchange.
As much as the tour showed the ugly parts of what governments and corporations have done to this neighborhood, the parts that make me clench my fists, it was also a walk of hope.
I learned about the community’s dream to transform the waterfront into a thriving network of open green spaces. Arif shared that SBU was hard at work applying for a twenty-million dollar Environmental Protection Agency grant that would fund two sections of its waterfront plan. Aresh’s willow trees, I learned, were just one small piece of a big vision. I asked Arif about Aresh’s proposal to collaborate with South Bronx Unite.
Arif gave an enthusiastic nod. At a total estimated cost of $350,000, Aresh’s plan would be one piece of a broader puzzle. While Aresh’s plan is not part of their EPA grant proposal, greening the community as a whole is an important part of SBU’s work. He told me they’re looking forward to supporting Aresh on the full living willow project.
But Arif turned his focus back to the bigger plan, and as I basked in the community vision, I too began to imagine the possibilities.
“What’s stopping it?” I asked him.
“City and state agencies may be well-intentioned, but that hasn’t translated into the kind of investment we need to truly transform.” I paused on that word, transform. It’s a familiar tension between the transformative ideas we need and the red tape that prevents even small changes. In Aresh’s willow structure proposal, he explained it would require the input of nine government agencies. I didn’t dare ask Arif how many agencies the entire waterfront proposal would require, or how many years it would take if all went well. (Six months later, the plan Arif shared suffered a setback. In January 2025, they realized that they would not hear back from the EPA about the grant.)
Governments and corporations damage people and the planet at an alarming rate and scale. How many willow trees would it take to offset a Fresh Direct facility? I don’t want to know. But these two excursions with Aresh and Arif showed me the importance of thinking both small and big. Aresh’s vision to supplement New York City bus shelters with shade-producing, carbon-sucking willow shelters and South Bronx Unite’s vision to reshape the entire waterfront reminded me that our small actions come together as part of a bigger vision.
One moment Aresh is pulsing his fingers on a skinny willow tree, searching for the point where it wants to bend. Next, he’s talking about how he and small groups have saved places like Children’s Magical Garden. With the spread of his ideas, and with the support of groups like South Bronx Unite who maintain the bigger vision, carefully-woven baby willow shrubs can grow into so much more. I remember my first day at Maria Solá. All of this will begin with us getting our hands dirty.
David William Rosales is a creative nonfiction writer based in New York City. On his website, he blogs about long-term travel, transit, and advocacy for a more sustainable world. When not volunteering in Bronx community gardens or debating how to improve public transit in the U.S., he likes to read, explore New York, and eat Salvadoran food.
