At: Children’s Magical Garden, 129 Stanton Street, New York, New York 10002
On: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021, at 7:15 AM
Contact: Children’s Magical Garden Director Kate Temple-West at 917-702-4171
Dear Friends and Community,
Please join More Gardens, Children’s Magical Garden and the Lower East Side Community for coffee, breakfast and urgently holding the line for gardener’s rights this Tuesday morning. Children’s Magical Garden, More Gardens, and concerned community members are speaking on Tuesday, November 23rd at 7:15 AM about their civil rights lawsuit filing Monday.
Real Estate developer David Marom sued individual gardeners, including parents of young children, for 20 million dollars as well as Children’s Magical Garden and More Gardens Fund for defamation simply for speaking up on behalf of the garden. This lawsuit on behalf of the garden, stating that this was a civil rights violation, will make any developer think again about trying blatant intimidation tactics against our community.
Bring your children and your inner children to illuminate how showing up for justice can be fun and life-affirming!
We will have hot beverages and breakfast (donuts and bialies and fresh fruit) and share good energy to show how important our precious garden is to the community.
Your presence will make it so special.
Below are all the details.
Looking forward to seeing you Tuesday at 7:15 AM!
Gratefully,
Kate, Tiffany, Lissette, George, and members of Children’s Magical Garden
Aresh Javadi, Director and JK Canepa President of More Gardens Fund
The details:
Monday Children’s Magical Garden, More Gardens and individual community gardeners will file a civil rights lawsuit against real estate developer David Marom for his unlawful attempts to intimidate and silence community members defending and preserving our beloved Garden. Below is a summary of our claim.
For nearly forty years, Children’s Magical Garden has provided a safe haven for children to play and learn about nature across the street from P.S. 20 elementary school. Yet, since 2013, David Marom has tried to seize a piece of our Garden and bulldoze it so he can build his own private residence. We have vigorously been defending our rights to preserve the Garden in court. When the Garden and community members spoke the truth to the media about egregious attacks and the Garden’s rights, David Marom tried to silence us by bringing a $20 million defamation lawsuit.
In many cases, the burden and enormous expense to defend against such suits are too much for community gardeners and working-class people. We stood our ground, and thanks to securing pro bono lawyers from Sidley Austin LLP and Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP, we successfully defended ourselves. New York Supreme Court ruled that Marom’s claims against the community violated New York Civil Rights Law protections for individuals and community groups exercising their constitutional rights to speak out on issues of public importance.
With today’s lawsuit, the Garden, More Gardens Fund along with volunteers and neighbors, are sending a strong message: if you try to intimidate, harass, or harm our community, especially the children in our community, there will be consequences. We are asking the Court to impose fees and damages on Marom for his, civil rights violations.
