New York City’s outgoing Mayor Eric Adams has designated the long-embattled Elizabeth Street Garden as parkland, weeks after Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani vowed to renew the eviction of the plot to create affordable housing. The move could make it more difficult for Mamdani to build housing on the garden, which supporters considered to be in the clear after the city walked away from its eviction plans earlier this year.
In a November 6 letter reviewed by Hyperallergic, Department of Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Louis Molina said that the city “unequivocally and permanently” dedicated the plot “to public use as parkland.” The letter, sent to Parks and Recreation Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, said the city’s housing authority would transfer management of the property to the parks department upon completion of a licensing agreement.
The quaint lower Manhattan garden, which houses several Neoclassical sculptures and a notable Gilded Age balustrade, was served an eviction notice last October. As the owner of the plot of land occupied by the garden, the city had planned to construct 123 units of affordable housing for low-income and LGBTQ+ seniors, with construction expected to begin later this year. After several legal challenges delayed the garden’s departure, the Adams administration backed down from its eviction pursuit in June and, instead, vowed to build 620 affordable units at three alternative sites in Manhattan.
The garden’s advocates celebrated the city’s reversal as a win culminating a yearslong debacle. But in a rapid-fire interview with Hell Gate last month, then-candidate Mamdani said he would evict the garden within his first year in office. He did not elaborate on his rationale further in the interview.
A city spokesperson told Hyperallergic that bypassing park designation to build housing would be “technically possible but in practice, inconceivable.” Mamdani would need the approval of the New York State Legislature, according to the spokesperson.
In a press conference Thursday morning, Mamdani told reporters that Adams’s designation would make it “nearly impossible” for him to build housing on the plot.
“This is a ‘win-win’ situation,” First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro said in a statement shared with Hyperallergic, “preserving a cherished community garden and creating more than five times as much affordable housing in this neighborhood as had originally been planned.”
In its final lawsuit before the city backed down, the Elizabeth Street Garden had argued that it is a work of Outsider art protected by the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA). In a February statement to Hyperallergic, a City spokesperson characterized the lawsuit as “a gross attempt to mislead the public and steal public land.”
“Haven Green will provide 100 percent deeply affordable senior housing in a neighborhood with limited affordable options,” the spokesperson said at the time.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit heritage stewardship organization that claimed to have recommended the VARA defense to the garden, celebrated the reported designation of the space as parkland.
“The Elizabeth Street Garden, like the High Line in Manhattan and the Home for Retired Playground Animals in the Bronx, will be a distinct park in the city’s portfolio, a much-needed open space serving area residents, and a destination for international travelers,” Cultural Landscape Foundation President and CEO Charles A. Birnbaum wrote in a statement to Hyperallergic.
Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.
