Help Staten Island Save Mount Manresa (Art Intervention and Rallies) Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Dec 15 2013

Location: 

Staten Island, New York

Ongoing efforts to Save Mount Manresa:

Mount Manresa is a 15 acre former Jesuit retreat center on Staten Island in New York City. Since the early 20th century, this has been a place for people to convene, meditate, be with nature and recharge their creative energy. In the summer of 2013, it was announced that the property was being sold to private developers. This means that the 15 acres, including some of the oldest trees in New York City still standing (including a 400 year old tulip tree), the glacial moraine that the property rests on (from the last ice age), and the historic grotto from the 1860's is all going to be destroyed for high density housing (read: condos and townhouses).

The Committee to Save Mount Manresa is trying to stop the sale to protect the wildlife, the trees, the history, and landscape of Mount Manresa, which is the only green space in the immediate area. They are advocating for what the surrounding community wants: a public park.

On December 2 2013, it was announced that judge overseeing the lawsuit from between the Committee v. the Jesuits and Savo Brothers declared that the sale can indeed go through. This means that we are now fighting, against the clock, to ensure that we can save this property. There are local non-profits and the New York Public Land Trust that are offering to purchase the property for the same price as the developers. This space was important to the community, and largely funded/donated to by the community. We are fighting hard to preserve a space in a place where most of the green has already been developed over.

But we need your help!

We are using December 2013 to be a Month for Manresa. We have been doing multiple action per week including public rallies, flyering, an Art Intervention, Spaghetti Dinner for the neighborhood, and Open Mic @ Manresa.

This is a real grassroots effort and we are now trying to make the movement more creative with signage, music, poetry, dance, and art. Once we started to use art in our process, we received local and regional media attention at a much higher rate.

If you have ideas/suggestions/comments/support, please visit our website: www.savemanresa.org.

This post is to spread awareness and to demonstrate that grassroots community efforts that involve art have the potential to win people's hearts.

Posted by mwestARTS on