Santos Torres

Santos Torres has lived in Coney Island for 43 years, tends the Santos White Community Garden, and plays music on the Boardwalk during the summer.  Located on Mermaid Avenue, the garden was founded in 1995 and is part of the City's GreenThumb network of community gardens. Torres says that he named it Santos White because everything was painted white. He keeps roosters, chickens and ducks, and grows a variety of vegetables, sharing the eggs and produce with his neighbors. Now 70, Torres recalls learning to garden from watching his father as a young boy in Puerto Rico. Picturesque statues dot the garden, which was rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy and is the gardener's "home away from home."