The Liz Christy Garden in the LES of NYC

New York City is a huge city with a lot of frenetic energy. That is all the more reason to find and enjoy the lovely gardens that are spread throughout the city. My personal favorite is the Gardens at St. Luke in the Fields, which is at 487 Hudson Street in the West Village. Recently I found an East Village garden that is now another favorite in the lower Manhattan area. Nothing makes one care more about our planet and recycling than a good dose of nature. It is actually possible to sit in a tucked away corner of this garden and “get away from it all.” It is a beautiful place for meditation, or resting ones weary feet.

The Liz Christy Garden is Located at Houston Street between Bowery and Second Avenue. The term ”bowerie” is Dutch for farm. Many years ago, during the 17th century a large farm was at the site of the current Liz Christy Community Garden. At the time it was owned by “the last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam,” Peter Stuyvesant.(1)” What remained of the farm was in shambles during the 1970’s.

In 1973, local resident Liz Christy took an interest in the plot of land. She and the Green Guerillas, a community of gardening activists went to NYC’s Housing and Preservation and Development office to inquire about using the lot. Volunteers gathered to haul out debris, and installed a fence. In April of 1974, “NYC’s Housing and Preservation and Development approved the site for rental as “Bowery Houston Community Farm and Garden” for $1 a month (2).” Work began towards planting raised beds, adding of donated topsoil, and planting of vegetables, trees and flowers.

By the garden’s second year it won its “first Mollie Parnis Dress Up Your Neighborhood Award (3).” New York residents throughout the five boroughs were inspired to start similar gardens. In 1986 the Garden was named after its founder, Liz Christy. Massive renovations have been going on throughout the neighborhood for many years. In 1990, the Cooper Square Committee, “pledged to preserve the garden in its entirety (4).” In 2002, in a more recent agreement, the NYS Attorney General also agreed to preservation of the Liz Christy Garden.

The garden is open to the public year round. The hours are:

Saturday- Noon to 4Pm (All year)

Sunday-Noon to 4pm (May to Sept.)

Tues. and Thursday- 6pm to dusk (May to Sept.)

There is a donation box in the garden for donations towards tools and supplies to further the maintenance of the garden. There is also a website for the garden if you wish to find out more about it: http://www.lizchristygarden.us/

I hope you enjoyed this post and hopefully I can make it to another garden or two while the weather is warm to share more photos of lovely New York City gardens. I have always been a big fan of gardens and am a member of two gardens within the Brooklyn Land Trust. Years ago I visited Adam Purple’s Garden of Eden many times, actually on a regular basis when he had it on Rivington Street, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I remember Adam Purple from when I was a young adolescent walking with my family in Central Park years ago. He would bike ride to the park to collect horse manure for his garden. Adam always wore purple, thus his name Adam Purple. He raised vegetables and herbs in a garden outside of his apartment building after the building was condemned and abandoned. He distributed the fruits of his labor to the surrounding neighbors, and even me when I visited. He stayed living there and continued his garden until the city finally closed it down many years later, in 1986. I was one of the people who wanted to stop the bulldozer. Adam said the tree in the center was “sucking up too much water” and that eventually the tree would kill the garden anyway, so he seemed to have accepted that the garden had run its course. About his garden he said “It’s the Athenian oath.” “The Athenian oath. The duty and responsibility of every citizen to leave the scene a little better than when they got there, to improve things (5).” The city never could get him to leave his home though and eventually a new building was built there. He was guaranteed his home since he had been there so many years already. The world needs more people like Adam Purple and Liz Christy who nurture and tend to the soil, making beauty out of chaos and rubble.