Vandals Destroyed Kids' UES Corn Garden. They're Planting It Again.

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The owner of an Upper East Side children's Montessori Spanish program whose towering corn garden was destroyed this week says the destruction came after years of trying to protect the students' unusual sidewalk project — and now she worries the school is being targeted.

But the children are going to plant it again, as early as next week.

"We're doing corn again," Mily Caballero, owner of Mis Amiguitos Spanish Montessori, told Patch. "Even if it doesn't grow as high as it was previously to us, it doesn't matter. We're going to grow corn again."

The decision comes after students arrived Monday morning to find the towering stalks they had spent months growing chopped down and thrown away.

A video on Instagram shows a man on a Citi Bike ripping the stalks out of the ground and stuffing them into a city trash can.

For Caballero, the loss hurt particularly because the garden wasn't merely decoration outside the school. It had become part classroom, part neighborhood attraction and part environmental experiment.

The garden began almost by accident after a delivery truck uprooted the tree that once stood in the bed during the pandemic, Caballero said. The school requested a replacement tree from the city, but when one didn't come, staff and students began using the otherwise empty bed themselves.

First came pumpkins. Students had tossed their Halloween pumpkins into the bed so squirrels could eat the seeds during the winter. When vines unexpectedly sprouted the following spring, teachers turned them into lessons about pollination and how pumpkins grow.

Later, students planted sunflowers that grew more than seven feet tall, Caballero said. They even placed small cups of water among the plants for bees, incorporating lessons about caring for the environment.

This year, they tried corn.

The stalks eventually grew so tall that passersby regularly stopped to photograph them, and Caballero said she began seeing the garden pop up on Instagram and TikTok. The students were preparing to harvest the corn in about a month and use it for classroom art and Montessori activities.

Then, Monday morning, it was gone.

"It was devastating," Caballero said. "A few of them were crying."

Caballero said the destruction was particularly frustrating because it followed repeated attempts to protect the tree bed.

The school has spent about $1,000 on materials, including wire, chicken wire and Plexiglass, to keep dogs and other disturbances out of the garden, she said. But barriers repeatedly disappeared over weekends.

And even after the corn was destroyed, the problems continued, Caballero said. A sign the school put up after the incident was torn down, and she said balloons and other signs have also disappeared.

"I feel at this point we're just being targeted," Caballero said, adding that she planned to speak with police again about the additional incidents.

The school has filed a police report, and Caballero said she purchased cameras that she plans to install next Monday to watch over the garden.

But she said she doesn't want the experience to teach her students to stop planting things. Instead, she wants them to learn how to begin again.

"Hard things happen in life, but it's okay to start over," Caballero said. "Don't give up."

And despite the vandalism, Caballero said the response from neighbors has reminded her why the garden was there in the first place.

"This is the children's project, but it's also for the community," she said. "It makes the community better. It makes the community a better place."

For questions, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.