As we've written before, and proved time and again, the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog is secretly about food. Yes, we write about Manhattan rental apartments most of the time, but from the neighborhood-enhancing aspects of Shake Shack to the farmers markets of the Financial District, we will definitely write something about food when the time's right (or when there's nothing else to write about). Today, thankfully, our two usual topics -- food and Manhattan luxury rentals -- have come together in a bit of good news involving the green rental listings of Battery Park City. As Manhattan real estate heads know, many Battery Park City rental listings are green rentals, but the ones developed by Manhattan green rental superstars The Albanese Organization have taken green building a step further -- by actually providing access to fresh greens (and tomatoes, and beans, and corn, and potatoes) to residents of Battery Park green rental stars The Solaire and The Verdesian. The pioneering CSA-delivery program set up by The Albanese Organization is another reason why they're officially LRM heroes, and more proof that Battery Park City is one of the greenest and most appealing places to live in Manhattan.
A CSA, for those who don't know, is short for "community-supported agriculture." It's essentially subscribing to a farm for an entire growing season; at the CSA your author belongs to, that means months of fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables (and the occasional challenging prospect of, say, kohlrabi) (which is actually delicious). It makes sense that residents at a green rental building would want to participate in something like a CSA -- what makes Albanese champions, however, is that they set up CSA delivery both at their two Battery Park green rentals as well as other rental listings in Harlem and on Roosevelt Island, with the Vermont-based Holton Farms.
"When Holton Farms, an eighth-generation farm in Westminster, Vt., approached the building about its C.S.A. plan, the management immediately agreed to help promote the farm through the building’s e-mail system and smoothed the way for the farm to park its truck and makeshift farm stand in front of the building on River Terrace every weekend," Vivian Toy writes in the New York Times. "As in other C.S.A. plans, members pay Holton Farms an annual fee — in this case $250 to $1,000 — at the start of the season, entitling them to farm products. But the program differs from a traditional community agriculture plan in several important ways. In most plans, a farmer makes deliveries of whatever is in season to a drop-off site like a church, school or community room."
Even for those of us already in CSA's -- and they're great, you should try one -- this sounds like a pretty spectacularly good deal. Not only do residents of The Verdesian get to live in one of Manhattan's finest green rental buildings, they get to live well, too. Score another one for life in New York City.
