Writer and musician Patti Smith joined New Yorkers this week in a rally to protest metropolis officers’ plans to destroy Elizabeth Avenue Backyard, a sculpture backyard tucked away within the busy Decrease Manhattan neighborhood of Nolita, to make means for an inexpensive housing growth for low-income seniors. After being denied protections underneath a legislation that grants artists the appropriate to forestall the destruction of their work, the non-profit that manages the backyard is making ready for the potential of eviction.
Smith carried out her 1988 tune Folks Have the Energy on the backyard’s Olmsted Brothers-designed iron gazebo on Tuesday (1 April). Smith—who, together with her collaborators Soundwalk Collective, exhibited at Kurimanzutto in Chelsea earlier this yr—has been one of many backyard’s most outspoken celeb supporters. She penned a letter final yr to New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams, asking him to name off town’s growth plans.
“The Backyard shouldn’t be solely an oasis of inexperienced house inside our metropolis, however really stands as a murals,” Smith wrote. “The hassle to put it aside is reflective of a mass effort to protect the pure and ever evolving character of New York Metropolis.”
Additionally current at Tuesday’s rally was Glee and Shiva Child actress Dianna Agron, who gave a speech in assist of the backyard. Agron is married to the artist Harold Ancart.
‘This isn’t the tip of the struggle’
For greater than a decade, native activists have been combating town’s plans to raze the roughly one-acre sculpture backyard to construct Haven Inexperienced, a proposed multi-use growth town needs to construct on the location.
In February, the Elizabeth Avenue Backyard nonprofit filed a lawsuit in opposition to town arguing the backyard is a murals that needs to be protected by the Visible Artists Rights Act (VARA), handed in 1990. VARA is an modification to the US Copyright Act and grants artists some rights over their work, no matter possession, in particular circumstances. Final month, a choose denied the park’s defenders’ request for a preliminary injunction underneath VARA.
“Whereas we’re deeply upset on this determination, this isn’t the tip of the struggle,” the non-profit group mentioned in an announcement, including that it has filed an attraction. “We stay dedicated to defending the Backyard as a novel murals and a significant neighborhood house, and we are going to proceed to pursue all authorized choices to cease its destruction.”
However even because the group pursues the federal attraction, the non-profit says it’s “making ready for the likelihood that the Metropolis could shut public entry to Elizabeth Avenue Backyard and set up fencing”.
The backyard’s historical past
Whereas positioned on public metropolis land, since 1991 the plot the place the backyard is positioned has been leased out—first to the late gallerist Allan Reiver, who reworked what was as soon as an deserted lot into an out of doors extension of his Elizabeth Avenue Gallery, positioned next-door. The backyard was first opened to the general public in 2005 via the gallery, and in 2013 Reiver constructed an entrance to the backyard outdoors for the general public to make use of after studying of town’s plans to develop the location. At this time, the backyard welcomes greater than 200,000 guests per yr, and round 400 volunteers assist run each day programming on-site. Reiver died in 2021, and his son, Joseph Reiver, now leads the non-profit that manages the backyard’s each day actions and continues his father’s struggle to protect its existence.
The town’s proposed growth, Haven Inexperienced, would create 123 inexpensive residential models for seniors, plus ground-level industrial house, places of work for Habitat for Humanity—a companion within the growth—and a small quantity of publicly accessible inexperienced house on-site. The models could be held at inexpensive rental charges for a minimum of the primary 60 years, an often-criticised factor of the deal.
Reiver and the Elizabeth Avenue Backyard non-profit have supplied town with plenty of proposed various growth websites, however proponents of growth say it isn’t a matter of constructing various housing— what New York wants is further models, full cease. The town has reached a disaster level after a long time of failing to construct sufficient inexpensive housing to maintain tempo with inhabitants and job development.
“It’s not like we’re saying ‘Don’t construct within the neighbourhood.’ We’re simply saying ‘Don’t destroy a backyard in an effort to do what you need to do,’” Reiver instructed The Artwork Newspaper final yr. “It’s a false alternative on the finish of the day.”
