From the Metro stop at Vermont and Santa Monica, more than 12,000 people live within a 10 minute walk.  On a Saturday morning, just inside that 10 minute walk and just down the street from his apartment, Matt Gildner is volunteering in the East Hollywood Community Garden.  By day he pilots robots on Mars.  On his weekends, he’s building planter beds and designing a pergola for his fellow gardeners to gather protected from the summer sun.   “I’m glad I’m not on the sidewalk staring at my phone and waiting in line for an hour for another new pop-up bagel shop,” he says.  “This garden has real utility. It gives a place that is not just a commercial place to meet people. It is not displacing those neighbors that aren’t accessing these increasingly exclusive commercial spaces.  The garden is accessible to everyone, not just those that can pay $30 a plate for brunch.  And in this accessibility, we can nourish each other in deeper ways.”

In East Hollywood, it’s not hard to feel squeezed.  On many blocks, the last single family lots are being developed into multifamily apartments.  Over 90% of the neighborhood residents are renters, and rents are going up. The stores and restaurants that can stay in business aren’t affordable to many locals anymore.  

April Ingram has lived in East Hollywood for over two decades.  A lifelong Angeleno, she moved to the area to be close to public transit.  “People in LA can go anywhere,” she says.  “The tendency is to just run around after the most attractive spot.”  During the weekdays she would leave the neighborhood to work as a librarian.  On the weekends, her Instagram page would show that she’d like all the places to go, stores to check out, and culture to experience just riding the Metro.  Then the pandemic happened, and she didn’t feel comfortable on the bus.  She started to walk.  A few blocks up her street, she discovered the garden.  “I started meeting people who live near me that I would never have known.”  After all those years of running around, she says, “It’s relaxing. I found it really therapeutic.  The garden gives me a place to just sit and be somewhere. You know what I’m saying?”