Temperance Alley garden is here-for-Now
Dear neighbor,
Temperance Alley Garden is an outdoor classroom, a time machine, and a soon-to-be construction site, tucked behind the U Street Metro and 13th Street. It’s stewarded by members of the U Street Neighborhood Association and the urban agriculture gurus at Farm The District.
For the next year, we’ll be hosting regular workshops & gatherings where people can share their curiosities and grow, together. When our lease is up, the garden will be transformed into town houses. We’re sitting inside a special window in time, and we want to make the most of it by celebrating all that’s blooming here Now.
See you soon,
Temperance Alley garden stewards
Step into the garden state of mind
The welcome womb
A lobby; a labyrinth; a clock. Get grounded in a rock garden made of archeological artifacts.
The lawn
A shared backyard; a playing field; a dance floor. Touch some grass and stretch out on this parking lot turned paradise.
The pavilion
A hearth; a cornucopia; a resting space. Meet your neighbors underneath this re-wilded ruin.
The café garden
An apothecary; a demonstration farm; an eden. Harvest our herbs & veggies, or fruits & fungi, and learn about the life that sustains us.
The story circle
A memorial; a time machine; a listening space. Share your stories around the portal to the past.
The time capsule
An archive; a treasure trove; a living museum. Explore mementos from the garden’s past and leave your mark behind.
You can find us in the alley between U & T St and 12th & 13th St NW
Accessibility: Events are always free to attend. Temperance Alley is accessible by metro from the U Street station and by the 90 and 96 bus lines. Parking in the area can be difficult. The garden is at street level, in an alley behind 13th street. There are no stairs to enter but the ground is uneven and unpaved in some places. Limited seating is available. There is NO BATHROOM on site. The nearest public bathroom would be the Brew on U Café or 14th Street Trader Joe’s. The space is outdoors, open air with limited shade structures. If you have additional accessibility questions or concerns, please reach out so we can better accommodate you.
Scenes from our Instagram
Design principles
1. We move at the speed of trust.
Our goal is not to “finish” the park as quickly as possible, but to slowly cultivate relationships with our neighbors. The less we outsource our projects to professional specialists, the more connections we’ll have with the space and each other.
2. We wait until we’re on-site to make design decisions.
It matters where we are when we discuss the future of the park. Our best ideas take shape when we’re interacting directly with the space and all the rich context it holds. It’s our whiteboard, our sandbox, and our memory palace. Temperance Alley itself is our most valuable thought partner, which is why we include it in all our meetings.
3. We treat the site as a living classroom, not a blank canvas.
There are a lot of plant, animal, and human histories that played out long before we arrived in the alley. We do our best to integrate them into our design process and celebrate the memory of the lives that have been lived here. If we’re successful, neighbors will feel like they have a role to play in this continuously unfolding history.
4. We ensure each element we add to the park is a portal to a deeper story.
Our shared backyard will feel alive and meaning-full if there’s a compelling why behind all the things we introduce to it. The stories of the park are carried by those who steward it. Some of them will be local and historical. Others will be far-reaching and ecological. The best will be all these things, woven together.
5. We “sketch” with flexible materials before building anything permanent.
Cheap, adjustable materials allow us to test the look & feel of new ideas. We flesh things out with more conviction after we’ve built up confidence in our “sketchy” design concepts.
6. We design with our expiration in mind.
Our park is unique in that it has a use-by date. It’s like a temporary art exhibition or the fleeting bloom of a flower. We embrace this ephemerality instead of running away from it, and we invite neighbors into our shared calendar.
7. If they come, we will build it.
Instead of building things on behalf of imagined future visitors, we give new people the opportunity to build things for themselves and their families. The park’s design is tailored to the events and experiences that neighbors want to host here.