The Elizabeth Street Garden (photo courtesy of Elizabeth Street Garden, Inc.)
The nonprofit organization that maintains the Elizabeth Street Garden in Manhattan has filed a lawsuit against New York City to prevent its land from being used for an apartment building.
The continuing story of the Elizabeth Street Garden has been going on for over a decade in lower Manhattan. The park and statue garden used to be a vacant lot left over after a previous building’s demolition. Starting in the early 1990s, a local gallery owner named Allan Reiver began turning the space into a community garden complete with salvaged benches, chairs, tables, bird baths, statues, and columns sourced from all over New York and beyond. The garden began receiving increased attention in 2012 when the city housing authority announced that a new development project, Haven Green, would be using the plot. The Haven Green project would include affordable housing, office space, and urban green spaces. Since then, the nonprofit organization called the Elizabeth Street Garden (ESG) has fought alongside residents of the Nolita neighborhood and many others to beat back the developers and some politicians. The fight to preserve the Elizabeth Street Garden has gained support from many prominent New York City residents, including Robert De Niro and Patti Smith. Many believed last year was the end of a long resistance when a court ruled that the ESG’s lease of the land from the city would end in October 2024. However, the ESG has now filed another suit claiming that the garden is protected under federal law.
The organization claims that the Elizabeth Street Garden is a work of public art, and is therefore protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act, passed by Congress in 1990. There is precedent for using VARA to preserve public art, but the tactic is not always sound. In 2018, after developers painted over street art at the 5Pointz mural space in Long Island City, Queens, a court awarded the artists $6.75 million in damages. However, claiming protection under VARA does not always work, as seen by a recent incident where the Des Moines Art Center was permitted to destroy a piece of environmental art by Mary Miss. According to the ESG, the garden itself is a “social sculpture” created and maintained by the ESG organization and the broader community.
Many feel torn when it comes to this issue. While my first instinct was to throw in my lot with the ESG, I had to weigh the pros and cons. Yes, having a beautiful community garden is wonderful. It is a desperately needed third place for many members of the community. It serves as a green space for people to relax, reflect, and appreciate the little bits of nature that can be difficult to come by in Manhattan. However, on the other side, the fact that the Haven Green project includes affordable housing causes a complication. Housing prices continue to go up and up, and apartment buildings devoted to affordable housing help to keep that in check, as it affects rent prices for the surrounding area. So, what began as a clear choice has become more complicated. To many, it seems the decision before them is to either protect a public space that has a valuable purpose in its community, or to help people struggling to afford the basic necessities.
However, the two sides have come closer together since the initial confrontation started in 2012. Since then, the Haven Green development has promised to incorporate more green spaces as a concession. The ESG has also researched what other spaces in the area are suitable for construction and could be used in Haven Green to spare the garden. Some spots they have recommended include 271 Bowery, 2 Howard Street, and 388 Hudson Street. However, as many have noted, it’s not as simple as just picking a new space for development. There’s probably an incredible amount of regulatory hurdles and paperwork that must be done for the project to be approved, something that has already been done. The new lawsuit has a slim chance of succeeding, and the Haven Green project will likely go ahead. What the Haven Green project offers is necessary, but that doesn’t mean I will not be sad if the Elizabeth Street Garden disappears.