Go Green Brooklyn delights in celebrating Eco-Heroes: people who go the extra mile to make their communities a greener. Luis Garden Acosta, the late Brooklyn legend, is a perfect example. Go Green Brooklyn attended his memorial at El Puente on Friday, January 11, and spoke with Gloria Zelaya, Health and Wellness Specialist and CADRE (Community Artist Development and Resource Exchange) Coordinator of Green Light District and El Puente Board Chair Mark Colón about Mr. Acosta’s work, life, and legacy as an environmental activist in the neighborhood.
El Puente’s press release describes Mr. Acosta as “an American pioneer of community-driven, human rights activist, as well as a widely-recognized leader in national and international movements for social justice, individual empowerment and community self-determination.” Before he became the Brooklyn Eco-Hero so many of us knew, Acosta almost became a priest and a medical doctor!
Just to look at the list of Acosta’s accomplishments is inspiring:
- Acosta founded the Community Alliance For the Environment (CAFE) which, in partnership with United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg (UJO) and the NY Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), overturned the City’s planned development of a 55-story trash incinerator in Williamsburg.
- Acosta co-founded the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
- Together with Frances Lucerna, Founding Principal, Acosta inaugurated the nation’s first public high school for human rights, the A-rated, El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice.
- Acosta convened and facilitated Puerto Rico’s first Leadership Summit on Climate Change, engaging all sectors of Puerto Rican society and fostering the Governor’s signature on five Executive Orders in support of climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience.
Mark Colón describes his spirit as indomitable. “Whenever El Puente said they were gonna show up, they showed up. Whatever they said they were gonna do, they did it. As a cynical New Yorker, it was very encouraging to see a nonprofit that actually did grassroots organizing.”
Acosta also cared about the home of his ancestors. In 2013, he founded El Puente’s Latino Climate Action Network in Puerto Rico (LCAN), involving over 200 leaders in talks and plans for 21st-century sustainability on the island.
Colón remembers Acosta’s tenacity during this project. “Post-Hurricane Maria, Luis had been not doing well for a long time. He and Frances organized this meeting with IEEFA. Luis was the inspiration and the spark for this effort where we were able to raise a significant amount of money dedicated to the Puerto Rico relief effort, to purchase solar power lanterns and battery chargers. To do that is more complicated than it sounds…Luis was integrally involved every step of the way. He was determined to make sure those lanterns got out to the people in Puerto Rico, and that they had an alternative source of energy or light. He was not just a visionary, he was there every step along the way. If he believed it, it was gonna happen.”
It was very easy for Colón to tell us about Mr. Acosta’s love for the environment.
“With Luis it went beyond love for the environment, it was a real love for humanity, from which the connection between environment and humanity came together. I met him in connection with the anti-incinerator campaign in the 90’s. Mayor Dinkins’ office had put out a waste plan. This was unique in that it was to be a series of incinerators to be built around the city. It so happened that all these incinerators were planned in poor communities… This was around the beginning of talks about environmental racism.”
As one of the students said in the Earthkeeping documentary, about the proposed waste plan, “If we weren’t people of color and we weren’t poor, this probably wouldn’t have happened. They wouldn’t put this in the Upper East Side, on Park Avenue. They put it in Williamsburg because they think we’re not gonna be able to fight.”
Colón continues to remember how his friend inspired him during this fight. “Luis had the audacious idea to bring together the Latino community in Williamsburg, the Orthodox Jewish Community, and the Polish Community in Greenpoint with NYPIRG. It was just amazing seeing the communities come together in a David and Goliath fight: the plan had already been approved by the council! Seeing the Orthodox, Polish, and Latino community marching over the Williamsburg Bridge hand-in-hand was really inspiring. When you’re young and figuring out what to do, it gives you an idea of what’s really important.”
El Puente’s “Green Light District”, a brainchild of Acosta, is a unique combination of arts and culture and health and environmental issues, a holistic approach to health and community development.
Gloria Zelaya, with the Green Light District, said, “It started with Luis’s ideas to help the environment, especially in North Brooklyn. He created a plan for ten years to see how the environment improves around us. The Green Light District has a cultural component, too. The arts move people. At this moment, we are teaching the young people how to monitor the quality of the air in the neighborhood. They have these little gadgets and they go out and measure the level of toxicity in the air. The little park in front of El Puente where all the children go? That’s the most contaminated park in the area. It’s very close to the bridge and the buses…the children go there to play, and the quality of the air is really bad.
“We have a community garden here on South 2nd (Espiritu Tierra Garden) and we teach people to grow their food during the summer. We bring young people, to learn how to grow, to learn the value of nature. Also, we sometimes clean the parks with the young people, so they know we have to respect the earth and take care of our parks.”
The passing of Luis Garden Acosta is an enormous loss for our community. However, the work and beauty that Acosta left behind makes our grief a little easier to bear.
If anybody would like to recognize Acosta’s life and service, the family asks that a donation be made to El Puente to support his legacy.