Neighbors sipped iced tea and listened to harp music on Saturday in the Elizabeth Street Garden to celebrate the preservation of the green space after a decades-long push to convert the site to affordable housing.
The event, put on by the nonprofit that runs the garden in the NoLIta neighborhood of Manhattan, came after developers on Thursday dropped their lawsuit against the city, which in 2025 made it more difficult to build there.
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Mayor Zohran Mamdani had abandoned the plan to build affordable housing on the site of the garden. The moves by the city and developers handed a victory to celebrities and other neighbors who had vigorously opposed the proposed development, Haven Green.
At the sunny celebration on Saturday, people journaled, sipped iced coffees and read paperback books. Volunteers passed out plastic cups of hibiscus iced tea. A harpist took the stage, performing a monologue between songs. Garden-goers of every generation scrambled to snag the bistro chairs scattered around the park.
Residents also flocked to Renee Green, the chair of the nonprofit’s board, who sat in a prime spot in the sun-dappled shade.
“It’s been very difficult. We were up against a lot of odds,” said Ms. Green, 94. “We were a small group of people who never lost sight of what we really wanted. And that was to preserve the garden.”
Joseph Reiver, the executive director of the Elizabeth Street Garden nonprofit, spoke at a microphone in front of the garden’s small stage. “We don’t have to settle for false dichotomies,” he said. “We proved that you don’t have to lose something to gain it. You don’t have to lose nature to gain housing and affordability.”
“People refused to accept the proposal for Haven Green because it did not make sense,” said another speaker, Norman Siegel, the nonprofit’s lead counsel through all its years of litigation.
He listed three new affordable housing projects that were in the works in Lower Manhattan. One of the development sites was nearby, at 22 Suffolk Street, where the city has confirmed it plans to build 180 affordable homes.
Mr. Siegel punctuated his speech with a fist to the sky.
Former Mayor Eric Adams supported developing the garden for years, before abruptly abandoning the plan last year and saying he would build housing elsewhere. And in the fall, shortly after Mr. Mamdani was elected, Mr. Adams’s deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, had the site designated as “parkland,” blocking the city’s development plans.
Some who supported developing the garden suggested wealthy New Yorkers had a hand in shutting the project down.
“The proposed settlement on Haven Green means that a badly needed and fully approved project for seniors was undone by celebrities who had Randy Mastro’s cellphone number,” Annemarie Gray, the executive director of Open New York, a nonprofit group that supports housing development, said in a statement earlier this week.
Residents at the garden on Saturday disagreed with that assessment.
“I was upset about the bifurcated scenario that was set up between housing and the park,” said Eva Machauf, who lives on nearby Broome Street. “A lot of people were saying, ‘Well, this is a wealthy neighborhood and there’s NIMBY-ism going on.’”
“Well, I live here and I’m not rich,” Ms. Machauf, 76, said.
John Krug, a volunteer garden greeter, has lived nearby for years and has enjoyed the park in all its iterations, even back when it was just a vacant lot he would peek through beyond a chain-link fence. He decided to become a volunteer about two years ago, when, he said, the fight to preserve the garden really started to ramp up.
“The developers started making their plans, and we realized — it’s really going to happen,” said Mr. Krug, 75. “I couldn’t imagine not being able to come here.”
Anya Biggs, who lives in Brooklyn, said she had always appreciated the garden for being beautiful and free. “A lot of people don’t have the option to afford this area,” Ms. Biggs said. “This is such a rare place near SoHo — a green space that hasn’t been commercialized.”
The battle over the garden raged for more than a decade, serving as a proxy in the tug of war between development and preservation, and the struggle to alleviate the city’s housing shortage.
After Councilwoman Margaret Chin lobbied Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s administration to build subsidized housing on the site in 2012, lawmakers, community boards and residents squabbled for years over the solution. High-profile voices, including Patti Smith, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, joined in the outrage at razing the garden for development.
On Saturday, many residents breathed a sigh of relief that it was all over.
“It’s a godsend, after going to Albany and losing so many times,” said Ana de Portela, a poet and a volunteer gardener at the park. “I get goosebumps.”
“When was the last time I felt like this?” she wondered aloud. “Probably when the Knicks won.”
Mihir Zaveri contributed reporting.
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