BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | The Adams administration has given the Elizabeth Street Garden until Wed., Sept. 11, to vacate its city-owned lot in Little Italy. From the sound of it, though, the garden won’t be leaving right away then — or hopefully ever, if the gardeners have their way.
Joseph Reiver, the green oasis’s executive director, said while they expect to receive a notice telling them to clear out, it’s part of a process.
“When they execute the warrant of eviction, it’ll take some time,” he explained.
A lawsuit to save the treasured space from being destroyed to build Haven Green, a senior affordable housing project, recently lost at the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. But Reiver indicated new legal strategies are being pursued.
“We’re preparing them is all I can say at this point,” he stated, declining to elaborate.
Renowned civil-rights attorney Norman Siegel, who represented the garden in its recent lawsuit — arguing for three hours before the Court of Appeals — is once again part of the legal team.
On the evening of Mon., Aug. 26, supporters gathered at the monument-festooned Little Italy space to organize. Among them were members of the feisty activist group Lower East Side Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side.
The Village Sun got a heads up about the meeting, though was told not to come by during the gathering, but only afterward. Reiver declined to say what was discussed.
Meanwhile, every day, garden visitors are signing onto an open letter to Mayor Adams urging him to preserve the popular destination spot. Seniors and children who cherish the place also have written letters to Adams, pleading that he recognize the place’s value to the open space-starved community.
Similarly, nearly 100 local businesses and 29 local organizations — including two nearby Fire Department ladder companies, McNally Jackson Books and the Museum of Chinese in America — have signed onto the letter to save the garden.
In addition, three American cultural luminaries, actor Robert DeNiro, rock singer Patti Smith and movie director Martin Scorsese, recently joined the kids, seniors, merchants and more in writing the mayor, hoping to move him to spare the one-of-a-kind garden.
Noting he was raised in the neighborhood, Scorsese wrote, “I understand that housing is now a major concern in this city. But what I know is there is nothing else like this garden in the neighborhood.
“When I was growing up, Little Italy was more or less a concrete jungle,” the “Mean Streets” director recalled. “We used to play in the alleys. There was no shade, no greenery, no respite — something that every neighborhood needs. The makeup of Little Italy may be different [today], but the need for a beautiful, refreshing oasis like the Elizabeth Street Garden has not changed. I wish it had been there when I was young.
“The space is relatively small,” Scorsese noted, “and I have no doubt that there are many other spots around the city that would yield more space and a great number of [housing] units. To destroy this garden would be a sad development for the neighborhood and for the city.”
DeNiro, who also grew up in Little Italy, wrote, “I support increasing the availability of affordable housing (community leaders have identified alternate locations for development), but I’m also passionate about preserving the character of our neighborhoods. That’s why, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I started initiatives to bring people back Downtown — to Chinatown, Soho, Tribeca, FiDi, etc., and then co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival.
“…[R]esources like the Elizabeth Street Garden serve the people who make our city great,” the “Godfather Part II” star counseled. “Taking away the Elizabeth Street Garden is erasing part of our city’s unique cultural history and heritage.”
Singer Smith, who lives nearby, wrote Adams, “The Garden is not only an oasis of greenspace within our city, but truly stands as a work of art. The effort to save it is reflective of a mass effort to preserve the natural and ever evolving character of New York City. Affordable housing and greenspaces are both essential assets and should not be pitted against each other. The community has presented several options to build nearby without destroying the garden. Our great city is in danger of becoming a developer’s unchecked haven, and we look to you to help us set a lasting precedent for how New York City will protect public art and greenspaces for the future.”
In September 2021, the singer performed a three-song set, including her activist anthem “People Have the Power,” in the Elizabeth Street Garden accompanied by guitarist Lenny Kaye and her daughter, Jesse Paris Smith, on keyboard.
“It seems like we have to fight to keep places like this,” Smith said back then. “There used to be many. … Use your voice!” she urged the crowd.
However, Adolfo Carrion, Jr., the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development commissioner, was unsympathetic to the garden. The outer-borough bureaucrat recently sniffed to The New York Times, “They are a tenant that’s about to not be a tenant.” The gardeners don’t understand the site’s history, he said. To the contrary, it sounds like Carrion is the one who doesn’t appreciate or understand the garden’s history or importance.
People can send a pre-written letter to the Mayor at the Elizabeth Street Garden website. It takes 10 seconds!