焦点教育出品-托福【阅读背景】机经：纽约的社区花园.docVIP

焦点教育出品-托福【阅读背景】机经：纽约的社区花园 　　Friday, April 22, is Earth Day, a time set aside to appreciate nature and to dedicate ourselves to protecting and sustaining it. New York City, a place many think of as an urban jungle, is home to more than 500 community gardens where the crops are as diverse as New Yorkers themselves. 　　一提到纽约市，人们会联想到一个城市建筑丛林，其实，纽约市有500多个社区花园，花园中的植物和纽约市人口一样多样化。 　　Creating and sustaining these green spaces offer pleasure, camaraderie and much needed contact with the wonders of nature. 　　这些绿色空间为市民们带来快乐、友爱，并让市民能够和大自然亲密接触。 　　It’s nearly nine a.m. on a workday but Noah Kaufman, volunteer manager of the 113th Street Play Garden, cannot help stopping at the 12-by-30-meter green space. Grabbing a hand trowel, he turns over the pebbly loam looking for worms for his plot. 　　这是一个普通工作日，早上大约9点，第113街“游玩花园”的志愿者主席诺厄·考夫曼情不自禁地停在这个3千平方米的绿地上，用一把小铲子挖开铺满砾石的土壤，看看土里有没有害虫。 　　New York City is, if anything, the built environment. We have plenty of concrete. We have plenty of bricks. We have plenty of steel, says Kaufman. We have little, little places like this vest pocket park, which are a small oasis, a piece of green, a place where there are trees, where there are weed trees, fruits trees which have been planted by humans or planted by nature provide a little refuge from the city. So for the neighbors here on 113th street, this is our front yard and we share it. 　　考夫曼说：“纽约市高楼林立，到处都是混凝土、砖、钢铁。但我们没有很多地方象这个袖珍小公园一样，作为一个小小的绿洲，长满了人类种植或者是大自然种下的、能够为市民们带来些许庇护的大树、野生树和果树。对第113街的居民来说，这里就是我们的前院。我们保护它，分享它。” 　　The community garden has been a refuge for Alexandra Patz and her 7-year-old son ever since her family moved to New York from the suburbs where they had their own yard. 　　亚历桑德拉·帕策和7岁的儿子从郊区一个带后院的房子搬进纽约市后，常常躲到这个小公园里来。 　　When we moved to the city, I was glad to find on this block that there was this little garden where we could become involved, and where my son could experience digging and growing things, says Patz. 　　她说：“如果我儿子想做一个鸟窝，或者在树上挂一个鸟窝，他至少有一个地方可以这么做。这也算是一种户外活动，我们可以听到小鸟叫。” 　　New York’