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Call it the little garden that could.
The Elizabeth Street Garden, long a target of potential development in a city where space is at a premium, will remain permanently open in Manhattan, council member Christopher Marte announced today.
“Since the beginning of this fight almost a decade ago, we’ve been saying that we can save community gardens and build new affordable housing,” Marte said in a statement. “With this historic deal with Mayor Eric Adams, I am incredibly excited to share that our years of organizing have paid off.”
Indeed, the fight over the 1-acre plot on Lower Manhattan extends back to 2016, as AN reported, when the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) requested proposals to develop the space into affordable housing for seniors. Responses were filed by a number of architects, including Leong Leong. The proposal to build 123 units moved forward but was stalled by a lawsuit earlier this year.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) began advocating for the preservation of the garden in November 2018. The next year, it published a video interview with the garden’s designer, Allan Reiver, and his son Joseph. In a comment about this current news, TCLF president and CEO Charles A. Birnbaum advocated for additional protections: “Let’s enshrine the saving of the Elizabeth Street Garden, a treasured cultural resource, by having the site listed in the National Register of Historic Places, which TCLF has advocated for many years, along with the protection afforded through city and state designations that recognize its significance.”
More Affordable Housing, But Elsewhere
In what Marte is calling a “win-win solution,” the revised plan, approved by Mayor Adams and First Deputy Randy Mastro, allows Elizabeth Street Garden to stay open permanently. The 123 senior affordable housing units that would have occupied the site will move to a site two blocks away on the Bowery on a plot that otherwise would have been built as a market-rate luxury building.
According to the announcement, “156-166 Bowery is a site privately owned by Kinsmen Property Group,” which has agreed to include the 123 senior affordable residences as part of a rezoning of their property.”
Additionally, the City-owned lot on the northeast corner of Suffolk and Grand Streets has sat vacant for years. It was originally planned to become part of the Essex Crossing project and was then set aside to support a public school. But that plan “has since dissolved as enrollment has dropped in the district and the School Construction Authority has expressed no intention of constructing a school at this site in the foreseeable future.” Two hundred units of affordable housing are anticipated to be built on this property.
A third site at 100 Gold Street has Marte’s support to include at least 300 units of affordable housing at 100 Gold Street, which would mean that over 600 units of permanently affordable housing would be delivered in the neighborhood when construction completes on all three sites.
Zoning changes for the Bowery lot and a City-owned vacant lot at Suffolk and Grand streets will add a total of 600 new units of permanently affordable housing.
Star-Studded Advocacy
The preservation of the green space in Lower Manhattan became a cause-célèbre when New York City artists joined the fight to save Elizabeth Street Garden. Robert De Niro, Patti Smith, and visual artist JR, were among the bold-faced names advocating to preserve the garden, which features chairs and statues, and which is a rare public space that allows quiet reflection amid the bustle of a burgeoning, fast-developing neighborhood.
“Elizabeth Street Garden lives on,” Norman Siegel, leading attorney for Elizabeth Street Garden, said in a statement. “This beloved open green space and sculptural work of visual art will continue to serve the people of New York City as a needed public gathering place.”
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