Celebrities join last-minute effort to save Elizabeth Street Garden

With its eviction looming, Little Italy’s Elizabeth Street Garden is throwing one last hail mary. New York celebrities Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, and Patti Smith penned letters to Mayor Eric Adams this week, asking him not to build an affordable senior housing development on the city-owned site of the community garden, a plan approved in 2019 but delayed by legal challenges. The A-listers join thousands of residents who oppose replacing the unique green space with apartments, despite the city’s current housing crisis. Demolition of the garden could begin next month after the nonprofit that runs the space lost two separate court battles.

Elizabeth Street Garden is a one-acre community garden transformed from a vacant lot into a unique park by Allan Reiver, who had leased the space from the city since 1991. Reiver, who died in 2021, filled the garden with items found at estate sales, like a gazebo, a 20th-century balustrade, and lion sculptures.

The garden was not officially open to the public until 2013 when plans to build affordable housing on the garden surfaced. “The only thing to do was to open it to the public,” Reiver said in a 2019 interview with 6sqft. “Let the public defend it. Let the public fall in love with it.”

The new development, dubbed Haven Green and approved by the City Council in 2019, calls for 100 percent affordable housing for low-income seniors, including some formerly homeless New Yorkers, space for Habitat for Humanity, and a public garden.

“When I was growing up, Little Italy was more or less a concrete jungle. We used to play in the alleys,” Scorsese said. “There was no shade, no greenery, no respite–something that every neighborhood needs. The makeup of Little Italy may be different, but the need for a beautiful, refreshing oasis like the Elizabeth Street Garden has not changed.”

The “Goodfellas” director added: “The space is relatively small, and I have no doubt that there are many other spots around the city that would yield more space and a greater number of units. To destroy this garden would be a sad development for the neighborhood and for the city.”

In 2019, the nonprofit Elizabeth Street Garden (ESG) filed a lawsuit over Haven Green, claiming the city did not properly evaluate the environmental impact of razing the garden. While a state supreme court judge agreed and halted the project in 2022, an appellate court last year overturned the ruling, allowing the development to proceed.

According to The Real Deal, the group also appealed the city’s effort to evict the garden, but a judge ruled in favor of the city. The garden received a stay of eviction until September but has to pay roughly $100,000 in back rent.

De Niro pleaded with the mayor to save the garden. “I support increasing the availability of affordable housing…but I’m also passionate about preserving the character of our neighborhoods.”

“Mr. Mayor, you lead a great city. And you understand resources like the Elizabeth Street Garden serve the people who make our city great. Taking away the Elizabeth Street Garden is erasing part of our city’s unique cultural history and heritage.”

Singer-songwriter Smith echoed a similar sentiment. “The Elizabeth Street Garden is an entirely unique public sanctuary, where art, nature, literature and activism peacefully abide. Flourishing fig trees, flowers and ivy frame historical sculpture, enchanting all who visit.”

Smith added: “Affordable housing and greenspaces are essential assets and should not be pinned against each other. The community had 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 green spaces for the future.”

The city does not appear to be swayed by the letters. HPD Commissioner Adolfo Carrión Jr. told the New York Times: “It really doesn’t matter who sends a letter. 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.”

The crisis is a rental vacancy rate of 1.4 percent, the lowest ever recorded. Officials consider a vacancy rate of less than 5 percent a “housing emergency.”

The Adams administration is addressing the shortage with a goal of building 500,000 new homes over the next decade. The mayor on Wednesday signed an executive order directing every city agency to determine if housing can be built on property it owns. 

“If there’s any land within the city’s control that has even the remotest potential to develop affordable housing, our administration will take action,” Adams said.

“To solve a generational affordable housing crisis, we must bring new innovative ideas to the table and activate all city agencies, whether they are directly involved in creating housing or not, to help deliver for New Yorkers.”

RELATED:

• Elizabeth Street Garden can become affordable senior housing development, court rules
• Behind the scenes at Little Italy’s Elizabeth Street Garden and Gallery
• Plan approved to replace Elizabeth Street Garden with affordable senior housing development