Three decades ago, Allan Reiver cleared an abandoned lot of junk and debris to install a front lawn and two pear trees. As Reiver, who was leasing the space, continued to embellish it with greenery and statues, the spot was established as a secluded getaway from Nolita traffic and a lush gathering spot for local students, artists and organizations. Now, after an 11-year-long fight for the space, Elizabeth Street Garden received notice of an Oct. 16 eviction last week. 

The New York City Department of Buildings announced plans to replace the garden with affordable apartment units for seniors in 2013. As lawsuits concerning the lot’s proprietorship passed through three mayoral administrations, a New York judge ruled against the garden on May 8 — leaving community organizers to spend the summer holding fundraising events and calling on the city to delay the eviction. 

While the initial eviction was scheduled for Sept. 10, the garden did not receive its two-week notice until Oct. 2. Joseph Reiver — Allan Reiver’s son and executive director of Elizabeth Street Garden — said that city administrators, including Mayor Eric Adams, have initiated efforts to close the park. 

Reiver helped spearhead advocacy for the garden three years ago when his father died and tenancy expired. In an interview with WSN, he said that rather than demolishing the garden, the city should make use of empty city-owned lots and privately owned establishments to expand affordable housing.

“You have the owners of private developments, city council, possibly the community board, the community here with the garden — thousands of people ready to work with the city administration,” Joseph Reiver said. “When do you ever find that in the city of New York?”

Elizabeth Street Garden is proposing an alternative plan they call the “win-win proposal,” suggesting that the city instead use a larger lot on Hudson Street to build affordable housing and name it a Conservation Land Trust, which would preserve the garden indefinitely.

Allan Reiver initially founded the garden as an extension of his sculpture gallery in 1991, before opening it to the public in 2005. When proposals to develop 123 apartment units — 50 of which would be reserved for homeless seniors — on the land plot emerged in 2013, community members had just formed a nonprofit to expand the garden’s operations. After Reiver’s lease expired in 2018, a lawsuit in 2021 established the city’s ownership of the space and resulted in the ruling to close the garden. 

Advocates for the garden have since encouraged community members to email Adams and several members of his administration, with calls for the city to change its plans. After dissent to the garden’s eviction began to circulate online, more than 900,000 emails have been sent to Adams and a petition for the garden to remain has garnered over 9,000 signatures. 

Since 2005, the garden has hosted fundraisers and year-round programming — including poetry readings, musical events and solstice celebrations — and has served as a recreational space for students and community members. NYU graduate student Migwi Mwangi said he spends time in the garden on the weekends.

“It’s a space of joy and art and peace and rest for so many of us,” Mwangi said. “Thank you to all the people who fight to keep the garden alive and I hope it survives.” 

Joseph Reiver said that after a decade of advances from the city, they are now at the “pinnacle of the issue.” He added that the city is ignoring a “truly viable alternative” to increase affordable housing without evicting Elizabeth Street Garden, which could be addressed with the group’s proposal. 

“We’re going to keep fighting,” Reiver said. “We’re going to do everything we can legally and politically.”

Contact Danny Arensberg and Rory Lustberg at [email protected].