By Susan Love, The Plain Dealer
Gus Chan/Plain Dealer
Residents cherish tranquillity of condo’s rooftop retreat
The sun made a few feeble attempts to break through the blanket of gray clouds, but in the end it was too much. Overcast skies and spitting light rain won out. But the dampness of the muggy midsummer morning didn’t defeat Nina Gibans, a woman with a mission. She wanted to show off the surprisingly large and lush rooftop garden of Shaker Towers, a 12-story condominium on Shaker Boulevard in which she and her husband, Jim, have lived since 1984.
Yes, a rooftop garden.
Not that unusual, you say, in this age of “green” space and ecological awareness.
Well, this garden atop the building’s parking garage has been tended for some 30 years — way before “green” became more buzzword than adjective.
“It is especially gorgeous right now,” said Gibans, standing at one end of the winding, 250-foot-by-50-foot grassy area lined with some 30 garden plots.
Each plot is tended by residents.
Gibans, who for many years served as president of the condominium board, is the unofficial chronicler and press agent for the gardens and the building.
I think of the gardens as the soul of the building. -Nina Gibans