The garden is overseen by professionals, so it has likely had soil testing done, especially since they are growing produce.
Manhattan is mostly an island of bedrock, and there is no manufacturing or industrial areas in Lower Manhattan that would contaminate the soil. The only concern would be protecting the garden from water running off the streets bordering the park, but those all have drainage and curbs installed.
Ironically, there is little confrontation between a skyscraper and a wheat field, in the sense that they are both extremely artificial and totally man made.
I assure you the wheat field will survive without the skyscraper, the other way around not so much. Cities may believe that they are independent of agrarian and rural society but the reality is that modern cities consume an incredible amount of raw resources and by necessity require the resources that an agrarian society produces. While it may sting and be sub optimal an agrarian society doesn't per say need an urban one to survive.
No, no, no: you can't have the skyscraper without the wheat field. Agriculture and city are part and parcel of each other since Ur.
(I often wonder how dense you could get and still be ecologically harmonious using e.g. Permaculture; you might be able to reach the density of a town.)
Which I agree with, history shows that urban folks and rural folks are often at odds, to put it mildly.
However, you also said,
> Two types of completely different civilizations clashing.
Which I disagree with, rural (not wild) areas are just as artificial and man-made (for all that they have more foliage and critters per area) as cities. Agriculture and urbanity have proceeded hand-in-glove. Farms and cities are both parts of the same civilization.
I don't follow, wild areas are not the same as rural areas.
What you're describing is hunter-gatherer (which IS a different civilization, in my opinion, from urban/agriculture) even if it's happening on the fringes of some other civilization.
As far as i know, and I'm not a historian, there haven't been farming (rural or pastoral) civilizations without some town or city involved, farms have always been the umbra of the city.
There were nomadic herders, hunter-gatherers, and farmer/city-states, but there never were cities without farmers nor farmers without cities, ever. So I say they are part of the same civilization even though they are in tension within that system.
I plant a small field at the end of my parking lot in grain; wheat, oats, or barley. It started as a way to replace the weeds the previous owner let be, but over the years it has become its own challenge.
The progress from bare soil to green shoots, tallish grass, grain heads and then the dried straw color before harvest ties the viewer to the seasons.
It’s a small field. 1/20th of an acre (1/50th of a hectare if you go that way), but since I do all the work by hand it keeps it from being a burden. The down side of being the only grain field for miles around is that wildlife can wipe me out. A large flock of birds before harvest can do serious damage. Lately I lose most of the crop to sleeping deer which mash it down before harvest.
Some modern farm equipment literally injects diesel exhaust into the soil, the claim being that the increased carbon and nitrogen levels augment or replace fertilizer. And no I am not kidding, see Bio-Agtive.
I wish you could put produce farms into transparent tethered ballons- then they could provide shade for the buildings reducing ac-cost, while producing produce like a greenhouse.
To be fair it was an art installation. It may seem whimsical but at the same time it was a juxta or urbanity (which is known to think of itself as divorced from the far flung hinterlands that feed it) and farm. Business and cultivation. Suits and overalls. I think it was a pretty cool installation. Not as flamboyant as that artist who circumscribed islets with pink plastic film[1], but to me it has more meaning.
By "landfill", they mean land that was created by filling in the Hudson River, not a landfill where refuse is buried. But still, I would eat anything made from that wheat.
From the headline I assumed some “average Jane” had discovered a way to rip off the big banks via wheat derivatives, or futures or some such financial non-sense. Of course the headline for this article seems to reflect the post-modern bullshit that everyone from Wall Street banks to emerging artists (and yes, SV startups) seem to be participating in today. Since post-modernism seems to be preoccupied on the banality of the present I will leave no further words.
And there are hundreds of community gardens across the city that are maintained by neighbors and supported by the Parks Department.
Bonus: A time capsule was also part of the piece, set to be opened in the year 2979 http://www.agnesdenesstudio.com/works7.html