A Lifeline Extended to the Elizabeth Street Garden
Back from the brink. On Friday, November 1, 2024, an appellate court issued a ruling that stays the eviction of the Elizabeth Street Garden until February 2025 hearing can take place. According to a statement from garden's leadership:
The Mayor and the 1st Deputy Mayor can still choose to work with us on developing the private site proposal in order to provide the needed affordable housing at no expense to the community whatsoever. We will continue to do everything we can to protect and preserve Elizabeth Street Garden.
In November 2018 The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) first began advocating for the New York City's Elizabeth Street Garden, a unique and idiosyncratic oasis created by the late Allan Reiver who began transforming what was a vacant and overgrown one-acre city owned plot starting in 1991. It was leased to Reiver on a month-to-month basis and became the site for an assortment of neoclassical sculpture and architectural artifacts. The statuary collection includes a pair of marble columns and an iron gazebo designed by Olmsted Brothers for Burrwood (the former home of Walter Jennings) and a stone-and-granite balustrade designed by French landscape architect Jacques-Henri-Auguste Gréber. The garden also became a beloved gathering place that included musical performances, movie screenings, and other activities - nearly 200 each year - in a section of Lower Manhattan starved of public park space.
Earlier this year, the situation looked dire. On June 18, 2024, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled six to one that the City of New York could proceed with the demolition of the Elizabeth Street Garden to build a mixed-use development with 123 units of affordable housing. The court’s decision hinged on whether the city’s department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) had done the necessary analysis to determine if construction would cause “a significant adverse impact on the environment.” The court’s majority ruled in the city’s favor despite a spirited 24-page dissent by Judge Jenny Rivera who wrote: “the City failed to take the requisite hard look at the climate change impact of the project, including the reduction in open space, and did not provide a reasoned elaboration for its determination. The Appellate Division thus erroneously concluded that HPD complied with both state and city environmental quality review laws. I cannot agree with the majority’s overly deferential approach that allows for less than rigorous environmental
assessment.”
On October 2, 2024, the city issued an eviction notice that required the garden to vacate the site by October 17. The day before that deadline an appellate court judge issued a stay and scheduled a hearing for October 30. Two days later the appellate court issued it's ruling that stay the eviction until next February.
The Elizabeth Street Garden still needs your help. Click on this link to contact New York Governor Kathy Hochul and ask her to stop New York City Mayor Eric Adams from destroying this irreplaceable and beloved jewel.
