Cultivating parks, and himself John Tweddle
“There are a lot of really eager gardeners in this city,” Tweddle said. “People want to help improve the appearance of their community.”
By Mary Newman
Looking back, John Tweddle has made some interesting connections to his early life and his career in gardening. Growing up in Westchester, Tweddle and his brother would do the yard work to earn their weekly allowance. As they grew older, they spent weekends gardening around the community for extra cash.
“It’s funny when you look back and make those connections,” he said. “I’ve been gardening from the start.” Born in Manhattan, Tweddle always felt a connection to the city and hoped to move back one day. He studied English literature at a small college in Iowa, where he was introduced to Quaker beliefs. After college he had the opportunity to move back to New York, and got his first job at the Gotham Book Mart. “It was an extremely exciting time,” he said. “[Gotham] was a really exceptional place.” Tweddle started to fall in love with New York during this time; he was very inspired by the people around him. Stars like Patti Smith frequented Gotham because they were publishing her poetry.
Tweddle was soon hired to work with the grounds maintenance crew at a small Quaker cemetery in Prospect Park; this was his first job working in gardening or landscaping since the side jobs he did with his brother years prior. It was around this time that he was introduced to Brenda Corbin at the Parks Department, and concluded that a small gardening job wasn’t a sustainable career.
“In all honesty I realized that the amount of money you make gardening is not very high,” he said. “And although I was living nicely, it wasn’t a career that I could retire from.”
Thanks to Corbin’s suggestion, he got a job working for the city in 1989. Now that Tweddle had a more secure job, working in Central Park, he was able to enjoy how happy working in parks made him. “It was just so nice because I was working alone and spending my time in the most beautiful parts of the city,” he said. “I became familiar with the regulars who spent time in the park every day.”
It wasn’t long before Tweddle was promoted, when he was transferred to Prospect Park. There he worked under a supervisor who had an agriculture degree from Cornell University, and he really started to learn the science behind a healthy park or garden.
Discussing his career, Tweddle regularly mentions his coworkers, former supervisors and anyone who has helped him a long the way. When Tweddle began his Prospect Park stint the crew was run by Tammy Thomas. “She was really incredible,” he said. “She was a major inspiration to me, she really pulled all of us together during that time.”
Together, staff and volunteers, all worked to renovate Prospect Park. Tweddle and his team helped turn around the park in the early 1990s. His next career transition would be his last, and brought him into the position for which he is being recognized.
Tweddle began working for the Carl Schurz Park Conservancy on September 1, 2001. After working in large parks for so many years, he was now hired to save a smaller park on the Upper East Side. The Carl Schurz Park runs along East End Avenue from 84th Street to 90th Street, and when Tweddle came on board most people in the area had no hope for its revival.
He remembers a hill near 87th street that used to be constantly run down by dogs, and it was completely overlooked when Tweddle had planted new flowers to improve its appearance. “People used to tell me not to get my hopes up back then,” he said. “But in that first year we already had some willing volunteers.”
Susan Burnstein and Judy Howard walked up to Tweddle as he was gardening one afternoon and asked how they could help. That was the beginning of the comprehensive Carl Schurz Conservancy volunteer program. “There are a lot of really eager gardeners in this city,” Tweddle said. “People want to help improve the appearance of their community.”
From that first meeting with Burnstein and Howard, John Tweddle has been able to organize hundreds of volunteers since their first official meeting in 2003. Over the past 12 years, Tweddle and his team have turned Carl Schurz Park from a forgotten piece of land uptown to a beautiful destination for residents and tourists.
He organizes events like Mulch Fest and the park’s annual plant sale; and he uses zone gardening to assign volunteers to designated areas, and they have huge turnout each month for their volunteer day. Tweddle knows you can accomplish more with an enthusiastic team, and under his guidance he has been able to rally an entire community to save the Carl Schurz Park.