Almost dead-center in the middle of Downtown Manhattan is perhaps the unlikeliest place to stumble into the dreamlike reverie of a walled garden. Yet for nearly 25 years, the raised beds of wildflowers, verdant lawn, gravel walking paths, and sculptures from Elizabeth Street Gallery have offered just that to all manner of tourists, residents, schoolchildren, and visitors by way of Elizabeth Street Garden. The parcel of land the garden sits on has a nearly 200-year history as a space for public enrichment and later, recreation. That might come to an end as soon as Sept. 11, when the City of New York may make good on its plans to sell the land to developers, evicting and forever closing the garden in favor of an influx of luxury retail, temporarily affordable housing, and office space.
Efforts to save the garden have been ongoing (and thoroughly documented), with a new, desperate effort seeming to emerge with every passing day. The latest is a batch of letters written to Mayor Eric Adams by Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Patti Smith. In their letters, which were published on the garden’s Instagram page on Aug. 22, the trio make impassioned entreaties to Mayor Adams to halt its planned demolition. Their letters joined those penned earlier this summer by the first through fourth graders who frequent the garden as students of nearby P.S. 130, raising to him the issues of climate change, overdevelopment, and mental health that would ensue from its demolition.
Scorsese, who was raised in nearby Little Italy, wrote of the neighborhood’s “need of a beautiful, refreshing oasis,” while De Niro emphasized the value of “preserving the character of [our] neighborhoods,” their vital role in rebuilding downtown life in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the insurmountable cultural loss the city faces if the garden is demolished. It was Smith, a longtime downtowner and keyholder to the city, who shone a light on the garden’s soul. She wrote of it as a “public sanctuary where art, nature, literature, and activism peacefully abide” in the presence of its “flourishing fig trees, flowers, and ivy,” as she pleaded with the Mayor to grant the green space “a stay of execution.”
