flashback: may 12, 2007

adam purple

when i was a kid there were series of purple footprints that were painted all over the city. i would wonder where they were coming from and where they were going. more so i wondered who put them there.

it wasn't until i started my eldridge street project that i discovered adam purple. in the late 70s and early 80s, adam squated in the lower east side creating a community garden on eldridge between stanton and rivington -- "the garden of eden." with his then girlfriend, "eve" of course, they created a huge garden that spanned the block. it was setup into concentric patterns surrounding a ying-yang pattern. from pictures it was quite impressive.

in 1985, the city -- guliani, city attorney general at the time -- got was fed up with these community squating projects and decided to bulldoze the gardens to put up the low income housing units that stand today. in protest, adam laid down the purple foot print that went around the city starting at the site of the garden of eden, and ending in city hall.

two years ago i finally got to guts to meet up an talk to adam purple. he showed me one of the trees in the 'l.e.s Infil' projects that was planted during the garden of eden period and allowed me to take one picture of him -- "because cameras corrupt". (new server; old ip; yippee, now to setup the rest of the server.)