A picturesque public green space full of flowers and art can make visitors forget they’re in lower Manhattan. But the plants could soon be pulled up and the trees cut down as the city makes way for new construction. Now the neighborhood has launched an effort to save the Elizabeth Street Garden. NBC New York’s Ida Siegal reports.
The fight to save a beloved garden tucked inside the middle of a Manhattan block gained the support of a number of A-list celebrities this week, who each wrote heartfelt pleas to save a piece of the city.
Patti Smith, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro drafted letters to Mayor Eric Adams in hopes of changing plans to uproot the Elizabeth Street Garden in favor of building a new affordable housing complex.
The garden is known for regular programming that invites New Yorkers and anyone passing by to enjoy music events, movie nights, and group classes like Taichi and yoga, to name just a few.
The city owns the property and wants to sell it to a developer to construct a building that would provide housing for seniors. The current plan calls for 123 units for seniors, 50 of which would go to seniors who are homeless. The park is due to be town down on Sept. 10.
The garden's executive team took the city took court after the City Council approved housing plans back in 2019. The New York Times reports the group won the first fight in State Supreme Court but lost in appeals, twice.
Some seniors in the neighborhood say it’s not a fair trade, including Raoul Ollman, who would qualify to live in one of the affordable housing units.
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“Why destroy this? This brings so much pleasure and joy to so many people and is such an important part of this neighborhood," he told News 4 last month.
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Despite public pressure, the city has held firm on its plan. That hasn't stopped the outcry, which gained some of its most notable supporters this week when a handful of famous New Yorkers penned their letters to Adams.
"When I was growing up, Little Italy was more or less a concrete jungle. We used to play in the alleys. There was no share, no greenery, no respite-something that every neighborhood needs," Martin Scorsese wrote to Adams.
"To destroy this garden would be a sad development for the neighborhood and for the city."
In her letter, Patti Smith wrote about the garden's beauty, the life it brings to the community, and the art that flourishes in and out of its walls.
"The Elizabeth Street Garden is an entirely unique public sanctuary, where art, nature, literature and activism peacefully abide," she wrote. "I have been privileged to read poetry and sing in the Garden's serene yet celebratory gatherings, attended by people of all ages, friends and neighbors, tourists with their children."
"Affordable housing and greenspaces are both essential assets and should not [be] pinned against each other."
The city's housing commissioner, Adolfo Carrión Jr., said the letters don't move the needle.
“It really doesn’t matter who sends a letter,” Carrión told The Times. “I’m sure that the letter writers they’ve recruited in some cases don’t have the whole context of the history of the site, let alone the understanding of the crisis that we’re facing.”
