Chicago Prepares for an Urban Heirloom Fruit Orchard

The image wouldn’t leave him alone. “I kept see­ing all of these aban­doned and open spaces and dreamed up this idea,” says Snyder. Determined, the for­mer Seattle res­i­dent sport­ing a Rip Van Winkle-ish beard met with city offi­cials on a quest to find some land.

And find land he did. The city offered CROP land as part of some­thing called the Logan Square Open Space Project [PDF], which trans­ferred the land to NeighborSpace, a non­profit land trust. City taxes will pay for infra­struc­ture and build-out of the orchard, says Peter Strazzabosco, spokesper­son for the Department of Zoning and Land Use Planning, adding that the orchard “is the first of its type for Chicago.” All of the plant­i­ngs and man­power, Snyder says, will come from CROP.

The last tweaks to the plan have been final­ized by the city, and ground break­ing will begin in early 2013. And when com­pleted, what was once a derelict, pot­holed, and trash-strewn pie-shaped swath of land will trans­form into one of  the first urban orchards ded­i­cated to juicy fruits from long ago.

Along with 70 apple, peach, and cherry trees, as well as vine and shrub berries, Chicago’s Logan Square orchard will be a pub­lic plaza with seat­ing and  walk­ing paths, finally bring­ing some green space to a neigh­bor­hood once known for its lush boule­vards. A city loca­tion in every way, replete with porch sit­ters and food ven­dor carts, ele­vated train tracks will amble along­side and above the orchard, mak­ing the con­trast a far cry from the days when our fore­fa­thers grew many of the same varieties.

More than 50 of the trees—funded by the sale of a potent sea­sonal fruit cock­tail sold in the Chicago restau­rant where Snyder tends a rooftop garden—have been grafted and are tem­porar­ily grow­ing in an aban­doned lot owned by a Chicago fireman.

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