Should an Oasis Be Replaced by Affordable Housing? SoHo Is Divided.
When the creator of a quirky sculpture garden died, the debate over the plot’s fate intensified.
The Elizabeth Street Garden is a haven for SoHo and Little Italy residents. But nearly 200,000 older New Yorkers are on a wait list for affordable apartments.Credit...Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times
By Zachary Small
July 9, 2021
In 1990, Allan Reiver stared at the trash-filled lot across the street from his apartment and had a vision.
At the time, many of the industrial factories of SoHo and dusty storefronts of Little Italy had already turned into artist haunts, artisanal bakeries and shops. The neighborhood graffiti was fading. The junky, city-owned lot, wedged between Elizabeth, Mott, Prince and Spring streets, seemed out of place.
Mr. Reiver convinced city officials to let him rent the lot for $4,000 a month. Then, he set out clearing it. The trash was replaced with trees, grass, limestone lion statues, granite balustrades and rose beds, which Mr. Reiver first used as an outdoor showroom for his antiques gallery next door. But as the years went by, and members of the community learned about the fresh-air sanctuary, it came to be known as the Elizabeth Street Garden.
Image
Allan Reiver, who died in May, originally created the garden as an outdoor showroom for his antiques gallery next door.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times
In 2012 the city wanted to end its month-to-month lease with Mr. Reiver so it could develop an affordable housing building for local seniors. A conflict soon developed that would pit the city’s desperate need for low-income housing against the desire of Mr. Reiver and other residents to maintain what had become a much-needed green oasis. In 2019, Mr. Reiver became part of a lawsuit aimed at stopping the garden’s closure. But in May, he died.
One attorney said his death makes the garden’s survival unlikely, a loss that Mr. Reiver feared. “A building will never be torn down for a garden,” Mr. Reiver told the Times in 2015. “But if you tear down a garden, it’s gone forever.”
His son, Joseph Reiver, the executive director of the nonprofit overseeing Elizabeth Street Garden, said he will continue to fight for it. The quirky outdoor space is one of the most recognizable landmarks targeted for a proposed rezoning of SoHo and NoHo, its sister neighborhood. Under the plan, 3,200 additional apartments would be built over the next 10 years, including approximately 800 affordable units in an area that had fewer than 8,000 residents in the 2010 census.
Image
Joseph Reiver, the executive director of the nonprofit that oversees the garden, is fighting to save his father’s legacy.Credit...Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times
“We desperately need affordable housing,” said Gale Brewer, Manhattan borough president, who supports the housing proposal for Elizabeth Street known as Haven Green. “This project is attractive, and it’s something that fits into the neighborhood.”
A spokesman from the city’s Housing Preservation and Development agency, which is overseeing the building project, declined to comment on how Mr. Reiver’s death would affect it. The garden supporters are awaiting a decision on the lawsuit from the Manhattan Supreme Court.
In the meantime, there is no clear resolution for either housing or garden supporters. With low-income housing continuing to be a dire need in the city and the garden’s savior gone, the future is murky for the popular green space. “If the one person who signed a document with the city that was keeping the garden alive is gone, it might create a period of uncertainty,” said Brad Vogel, executive director of the New York Preservation Archive Project. “A lack of property rights would not help the garden.”
How Mr. Reiver got the property rights to the garden (or at least a lease) is one of those New York stories that hearkens back to the days when the city was still coming out of an economic collapse. In New York, second acts are made easier in times like these; Mr. Reiver’s was that magical garden.
Before he moved to New York in the 1980s, Mr. Reiver had worked as a real estate developer in Denver, Colo., where he was involved in a $450 million development deal that failed. He was named in more than three dozen lawsuits, mostly because he had not repaid creditors.
He remade himself in New York as a gallerist of garden sculpture. His goods were known for their stature, uniqueness and weight. “We move things the way the Egyptians did, with levers, pulleys, pipes and rope,” Mr. Reiver told the Times when his shop opened in 1990. “You can’t lift most of these objects. You have to use your mind, not just your muscles.”
As the 1980s came to a close, he made it his mission to transform the empty lot on Elizabeth Street into his gallery’s outdoor showcase. “It was going to waste and really being not only unattractive but somewhat debilitating to the whole neighborhood,” Mr. Reiver said two years ago. “And I thought I could make something beautiful out of it.”
He developed a reputation as a cantankerous guardsman of the park, deciding who gained access through his adjoining shop, Elizabeth Street Gallery. He later bought an adjacent firehouse, turning it into his home. It also provided additional gallery space.
Tunde Whitten, a branding consultant who met Mr. Reiver in the early 2000s, remembers seeing his friend dragging large granite sculptures through the garden with unusual strength for someone his age. “What distinguished him most for me was a relentless quality,” said Whitten. “He relished getting difficult things accomplished.”
Over time, Mr. Reiver became as eccentric and as stubborn to budge as his garden statues, especially when Margaret Chin, the councilwoman for the neighborhood, pushed the city to take back the garden and create affordable housing there, instead.
Mr. Reiver reacted by creating a nonprofit to represent the garden, which became more of a community space with poetry readings, live music, yoga classes and other events.
Garden supporters also hired Norman Siegel, a well-known civil rights attorney and the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. In 2019, the group filed the lawsuit, arguing that the city had violated zoning laws and had failed to adequately consider the potential adverse environmental impact of its redevelopment plan.
“Destroying Elizabeth Street Garden, would not only be a devastating blow to my vision and almost 30 years of work but would cause irrevocable harm to what is now a transformed and vital community and its residents who rely heavily on its presence and amenities,” Mr. Reiver wrote in an affidavit for the lawsuit.
To the city and some elected officials, like Ms. Chin, the need for affordable housing is simply more pressing. Nearly 200,000 seniors are on a waiting list for affordable apartments. A few residents understand this, and support the development project.
“I just can’t bear watching people, especially during the pandemic, not having homes,” said Kathleen Webster, who lives near the garden. She said that she has been booed at community meetings for backing the senior housing plan.
Image
A plum tree in the garden. Credit...Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times
In a statement, Ms. Chin expressed her condolences to the Reiver family but said that the senior housing initiative must continue. She has previously called Mr. Reiver and the opponents behind the lawsuit a “well-funded misinformation campaign” looking to delay a project that could make the neighborhood more economically and racially diverse.
But some residents view the Haven Green proposal as a false choice between affordable housing and green spaces, pointing to other vacant city lots suitable for development. Others see the new building as a modern eyesore uncharacteristic of the area’s classic charm, a development that will destroy the last bit of uniqueness in a neighborhood that’s already shrinking and losing its identity.
The community has been sold out in countless ways, said Briar Winters, a neighborhood resident and member of Chinatown Working Group, which regards the SoHo rezoning plan as fueling real-estate speculation. “The garden is just the latest example.”
Ms. Chin disagrees. The project will create “123 new permanently-affordable units,” she said in a statement, “in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city.”
Construction could begin by the end of this year, according to Haven Green’s website, which does not mention the lawsuit. Its development team is promising to incorporate a “publicly accessible green space” as part of the project, it said in a statement.
But it won’t be the same for Joseph Reiver and other residents who grew to love the oasis of statues and trees and grass. “My father wanted to fight and preserve the garden,” he said. “And if you never met Allan when he was alive, you can still meet him through the garden.”
When the creator of a quirky sculpture garden died, the debate over the plot’s fate intensified.
The Elizabeth Street Garden is a haven for SoHo and Little Italy residents. But nearly 200,000 older New Yorkers are on a wait list for affordable apartments.Credit...Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times
By Zachary Small
July 9, 2021
In 1990, Allan Reiver stared at the trash-filled lot across the street from his apartment and had a vision.
At the time, many of the industrial factories of SoHo and dusty storefronts of Little Italy had already turned into artist haunts, artisanal bakeries and shops. The neighborhood graffiti was fading. The junky, city-owned lot, wedged between Elizabeth, Mott, Prince and Spring streets, seemed out of place.
Mr. Reiver convinced city officials to let him rent the lot for $4,000 a month. Then, he set out clearing it. The trash was replaced with trees, grass, limestone lion statues, granite balustrades and rose beds, which Mr. Reiver first used as an outdoor showroom for his antiques gallery next door. But as the years went by, and members of the community learned about the fresh-air sanctuary, it came to be known as the Elizabeth Street Garden.
Image
Allan Reiver, who died in May, originally created the garden as an outdoor showroom for his antiques gallery next door.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times
In 2012 the city wanted to end its month-to-month lease with Mr. Reiver so it could develop an affordable housing building for local seniors. A conflict soon developed that would pit the city’s desperate need for low-income housing against the desire of Mr. Reiver and other residents to maintain what had become a much-needed green oasis. In 2019, Mr. Reiver became part of a lawsuit aimed at stopping the garden’s closure. But in May, he died.
One attorney said his death makes the garden’s survival unlikely, a loss that Mr. Reiver feared. “A building will never be torn down for a garden,” Mr. Reiver told the Times in 2015. “But if you tear down a garden, it’s gone forever.”
His son, Joseph Reiver, the executive director of the nonprofit overseeing Elizabeth Street Garden, said he will continue to fight for it. The quirky outdoor space is one of the most recognizable landmarks targeted for a proposed rezoning of SoHo and NoHo, its sister neighborhood. Under the plan, 3,200 additional apartments would be built over the next 10 years, including approximately 800 affordable units in an area that had fewer than 8,000 residents in the 2010 census.
Image
Joseph Reiver, the executive director of the nonprofit that oversees the garden, is fighting to save his father’s legacy.Credit...Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times
“We desperately need affordable housing,” said Gale Brewer, Manhattan borough president, who supports the housing proposal for Elizabeth Street known as Haven Green. “This project is attractive, and it’s something that fits into the neighborhood.”
A spokesman from the city’s Housing Preservation and Development agency, which is overseeing the building project, declined to comment on how Mr. Reiver’s death would affect it. The garden supporters are awaiting a decision on the lawsuit from the Manhattan Supreme Court.
In the meantime, there is no clear resolution for either housing or garden supporters. With low-income housing continuing to be a dire need in the city and the garden’s savior gone, the future is murky for the popular green space. “If the one person who signed a document with the city that was keeping the garden alive is gone, it might create a period of uncertainty,” said Brad Vogel, executive director of the New York Preservation Archive Project. “A lack of property rights would not help the garden.”
How Mr. Reiver got the property rights to the garden (or at least a lease) is one of those New York stories that hearkens back to the days when the city was still coming out of an economic collapse. In New York, second acts are made easier in times like these; Mr. Reiver’s was that magical garden.
Before he moved to New York in the 1980s, Mr. Reiver had worked as a real estate developer in Denver, Colo., where he was involved in a $450 million development deal that failed. He was named in more than three dozen lawsuits, mostly because he had not repaid creditors.
He remade himself in New York as a gallerist of garden sculpture. His goods were known for their stature, uniqueness and weight. “We move things the way the Egyptians did, with levers, pulleys, pipes and rope,” Mr. Reiver told the Times when his shop opened in 1990. “You can’t lift most of these objects. You have to use your mind, not just your muscles.”
As the 1980s came to a close, he made it his mission to transform the empty lot on Elizabeth Street into his gallery’s outdoor showcase. “It was going to waste and really being not only unattractive but somewhat debilitating to the whole neighborhood,” Mr. Reiver said two years ago. “And I thought I could make something beautiful out of it.”
He developed a reputation as a cantankerous guardsman of the park, deciding who gained access through his adjoining shop, Elizabeth Street Gallery. He later bought an adjacent firehouse, turning it into his home. It also provided additional gallery space.
Tunde Whitten, a branding consultant who met Mr. Reiver in the early 2000s, remembers seeing his friend dragging large granite sculptures through the garden with unusual strength for someone his age. “What distinguished him most for me was a relentless quality,” said Whitten. “He relished getting difficult things accomplished.”
Over time, Mr. Reiver became as eccentric and as stubborn to budge as his garden statues, especially when Margaret Chin, the councilwoman for the neighborhood, pushed the city to take back the garden and create affordable housing there, instead.
Mr. Reiver reacted by creating a nonprofit to represent the garden, which became more of a community space with poetry readings, live music, yoga classes and other events.
Garden supporters also hired Norman Siegel, a well-known civil rights attorney and the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. In 2019, the group filed the lawsuit, arguing that the city had violated zoning laws and had failed to adequately consider the potential adverse environmental impact of its redevelopment plan.
“Destroying Elizabeth Street Garden, would not only be a devastating blow to my vision and almost 30 years of work but would cause irrevocable harm to what is now a transformed and vital community and its residents who rely heavily on its presence and amenities,” Mr. Reiver wrote in an affidavit for the lawsuit.
To the city and some elected officials, like Ms. Chin, the need for affordable housing is simply more pressing. Nearly 200,000 seniors are on a waiting list for affordable apartments. A few residents understand this, and support the development project.
“I just can’t bear watching people, especially during the pandemic, not having homes,” said Kathleen Webster, who lives near the garden. She said that she has been booed at community meetings for backing the senior housing plan.
Image
A plum tree in the garden. Credit...Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times
In a statement, Ms. Chin expressed her condolences to the Reiver family but said that the senior housing initiative must continue. She has previously called Mr. Reiver and the opponents behind the lawsuit a “well-funded misinformation campaign” looking to delay a project that could make the neighborhood more economically and racially diverse.
But some residents view the Haven Green proposal as a false choice between affordable housing and green spaces, pointing to other vacant city lots suitable for development. Others see the new building as a modern eyesore uncharacteristic of the area’s classic charm, a development that will destroy the last bit of uniqueness in a neighborhood that’s already shrinking and losing its identity.
The community has been sold out in countless ways, said Briar Winters, a neighborhood resident and member of Chinatown Working Group, which regards the SoHo rezoning plan as fueling real-estate speculation. “The garden is just the latest example.”
Ms. Chin disagrees. The project will create “123 new permanently-affordable units,” she said in a statement, “in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city.”
Construction could begin by the end of this year, according to Haven Green’s website, which does not mention the lawsuit. Its development team is promising to incorporate a “publicly accessible green space” as part of the project, it said in a statement.
But it won’t be the same for Joseph Reiver and other residents who grew to love the oasis of statues and trees and grass. “My father wanted to fight and preserve the garden,” he said. “And if you never met Allan when he was alive, you can still meet him through the garden.”
