When Martin Scorsese was growing up in New York’s Little Italy in the 1950s, the neighborhood that became the inspiration for some of his best-known films was “more or less a concrete jungle”.
“There was no shade, no greenery, no respite, something that every neighborhood needs,” Scorsese, 81, said. Now, he has joined Robert De Niro and the musician Patti Smith in an attempt to stop the city from bulldozing a community-run garden in the Nolita neighborhood to make way for low-cost housing.
The Elizabeth Street Garden features Gilded Age sculptures and lush greenery, and for years has hosted outdoor movie screenings, yoga classes and poetry readings.
The garden, which covers almost half an acre, has been at the center of a legal battle for years between the city council, which says the land is needed to alleviate New York’s housing crisis, and a voluntary organization that runs the site.
In 2019, the council approved plans to sell the land to allow for the construction of an affordable housing complex with 123 apartments and issued the organization with an eviction order. The Elizabeth Street Garden non-profit group overturned the notice in the Manhattan Supreme Court, but has since lost appeals in higher courts and is due to be evicted on September 10.
“There was no shade, no greenery, no respite, something that every neighborhood needs.”
Nearly half a million people have written letters to the mayor to demand that the garden be preserved after the group’s legal options appear to have been extinguished.
Among them are Scorsese and De Niro, who have collaborated on films including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and most recently Killers of the Flower Moon, while 1973’s Mean Streets was inspired by their experiences growing up in Little Italy.
“The make-up of Little Italy may be different, but the need for a beautiful, refreshing oasis like the Elizabeth Street Garden has not changed,” Scorsese wrote in a letter to Eric Adams, the mayor. “I wish it had been there when I was young.”
De Niro, 81, cited his creation of the Tribeca Film Festival as proof of his commitment to revitalizing downtown Manhattan after the September 11 terror attacks.
“Taking away the Elizabeth Street Garden is erasing part of our city’s unique cultural history and heritage,” De Niro wrote in his own letter to Adams. “I support increasing the availability of affordable housing … but I’m also passionate about preserving the character of our neighborhoods.”
Smith, 77, who has held poetry readings in the garden, called it “an entirely unique public sanctuary where art, nature, literature and activism peacefully abide”.
“The garden is not only an oasis of green space within our city, but truly stands as a work of art,” Smith, who was awarded the “key to the city” in 2021, wrote. “Mr Mayor, my key is in your hands. You have the power to grant our garden the right to remain.”
The city has vowed to press ahead with plans to sell the garden to make way for a high-density apartment block, part of its plans to build 500,000 new homes by 2032 to fill a housing shortage.
Adolfo Carrión Jr, the city housing commissioner, said that the development would not be stopped despite the intervention of a few famous names.
“It really doesn’t matter who sends a letter,” he told The New York Times. “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.”
Joseph Reiver, an actor and the garden’s executive director, said that it was a work of art and vowed to continue to pursue all legal options available.
There was a schoolhouse on the site 120 years ago but by the 1990s it had become a dumping ground for cars and trash.
Reiver’s father, Allan Reiver, leased the abandoned site from the city in 1991, cleaned out the plot and planted trees, grass and flowerbeds.
Allan Reiver, who died in 2021, used the garden to display sculptures from his antique store, before setting up a voluntary organization when the city tried to reclaim the land in 2013.
Since then, a group of volunteers created regular visiting hours and events such as t’ai chi lessons and live music performances.
The city council has maintained that the garden was opened to the public only after it was designated for affordable housing. “This is a publicly owned site that was intended to be public housing,” Carrión said.
Bevan Hurley is a senior reporter at The Times of London and The Sunday Times
