I recently discovered the Elizabeth Street Garden in Little Italy, which is beautiful and quiet and very unassuming. It is midway up the square block that has Elizabeth Street to the east, Mott to the west, Prince to the north, and Spring to the south. The entrance is on Elizabeth between Prince and Spring:
Here's a look facing west from just inside the entrance:
And facing east from the Mott Street side of the garden:
A cool feature of the garden is that it has many sculptures and objects scattered about the grounds.
There's something about this sitting figure that I really liked:
The garden is not usually crowded, and there are plenty of places to sit.
There aren't any big streets surrounding the garden, so traffic and general noise is pretty minimal.
The garden is a certified wildlife habitat, which is pretty great.
The notice to the right in the above photo is about the danger of the garden being destroyed to make way for affordable housing. People in the community are trying to fight this.
The garden's website says that it is a rare patch of nature in the neighborhood, and "Little Italy and SoHo account for 23 percent of [Community Board] 2’s population but
have only 3 percent of its open space, nearly all of which is paved..."
There
are representatives, along with parks and community groups, that are
supporting the cause to save the garden. I hope they succeed,
because even though affordable housing is important, green spaces in the
city are valuable and necessary for peoples' health and well-being.
Maybe there's another space that could be used for the housing, because as the garden's website says, "Green space, once developed, can never be reclaimed, and no one is tearing down buildings to create parks."
One of my recent visits to the garden was on Earth Day, which was April 22. There were some nice signs in the garden for the day, and they also had a tree planting event scheduled in the late afternoon.
While I was visiting on Earth Day, a crochet artist named London Kaye was hanging up some works on the outside fence of the garden on Elizabeth Street.
On her Instagram post of them, she wrote:
Fortunately they were still there when I visited the garden several days later:
Here are some nice plants in the garden.
It was fascinating to see these folks just sprouting:
I don't know what this structure was, or is, but it has an interesting shape:
And this little birdhouse was just... can I use the word precious?
A few more looks inside the garden:
I wish I knew what this device was. It looks interesting:
I suppose I don't have much more to say about the Elizabeth Street Garden. But since a picture is worth a thousand words, I've already pretty much written a short novel about it. Anyway it's a wonderful place, so visit if you can. And let's hope it's still there in the years ahead.
To celebrate Game of Thrones returning for season 6, I thought I would cover 10 blocks simultaneously, while juggling dozens of storylines back and forth. Also I'll make sure to have someone die, someone be tortured, and someone get naked. Then after that--
Actually never mind, that all seems like a lot of work. Plus I don't have the budget for it. Instead I'll look at one block, but it's an interesting block. Really. Maybe a dragon will even make an appearance at some point (it won't).
This block is in the Nolita neighborhood, and right at the corner of Lafayette and Houston is the first of several works of street art. This one is on the sidewalk for thousands of people to hurriedly walk past at this busy intersection.
The Oraculo Project is by an anonymous Brazilian artist, who has also done street art in London and Brazil. In March 2016 he put blindfolds on statues throughout Rio de Janeiro as a general protest against corruption in the country.
Since the message on Lafayette Street is at such a bustling corner, I would consider it a great achievement if he got even one or two people to stop, appreciate, and smile. But it's certainly worth a shot. By the way, oraculo is Portuguese for oracle.
Also at the Lafayette/Houston Street corner (the 'ou' in Houston is pronounced like 'house,' not like Houston, Texas) is the Puck Building:
It dates back to the late 19th century and these days is occupied by NYU and also some businesses like REI, which sells outdoor gear, and the restaurant 'Chefs Club by Food & Wine,' which features the Best New Chefs from Food & Wine magazine.
The building has two exterior gilded statues of Puck, a figure in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream which was based on a character from English mythology also called Puck. One of the statues is above an entrance on Lafayette Street:
The opposite corner has been a gas station for a long time and seems to be under renovation. Since this is such a busy intersection, there are many large, unavoidable billboards all around it.
Just next to the gas station is artwork by the talented Dasic Fernandez, whose pieces I have noted in previous posts in Chelsea and the East Village.
Unfortunately some people did annoying scribbles over parts of it, but it's still largely intact. I love how vivid and intensely colorful his works are.
This site was recently a pop-up store for Swiss Water, which sells decaf coffee. Along with decorating the outside of the building, Fernandez was one of several artists to create paintings for Swiss Water which were donated to the non-profit Grounds for Health.
In fact, Fernandez worked on both ends of the building, which runs across to Crosby Street. Here is his work on that side:
Our block is intersected along the way by a small side street called Jersey Street. Here is a look down that street to the west:
And here's Jersey Street to the east, which has the Mulberry Street branch of the New York Public Library. It was also the first block I ever wrote about for this blog. Ah, the good old days.
Continuing south past the Jersey Street crossing, there is a tribute to David Bowie by the street artist Goldloxe.
Many people have written messages on it to honor and remember David Bowie.
Just next door is Alternative Apparel, an eco-friendly clothing company, although the store seems to be temporarily closed. They held a contest to have an artist's work appear on their stairs leading to the entrance, and the winner was Shona Neary with a work inspired by nature and the subway:
Also on this side of the block, actually closer to Jersey Street, is an Italian cosmetics store with old-school roots called Santa Maria Novella. How old-school? The company's website says they go back to when an Italian monk opened a pharmacy in 1612, and in fact even earlier to the 13th century when a monastery was started outside Florence by Domenican friars and they began experimenting with ingredients and recipes. Okay, I admit that's pretty old.
There are several other shops along both sides of the block, especially as it approaches Prince Street. Most of them are clothing stores, as this is a big shopping area of downtown Manhattan. Here are a few photos:
As a Mets fan, I don't feel inclined to use Atlanta Peach Movers if they're the official movers of the Atlanta Braves. Did they just do a big move from Atlanta to New York? If that's a New York-based truck then I don't understand their advertising strategy.
On the west side of the Prince Street intersection, here's a look east, and then south further along Lafayette Street.
Back near Houston Street there was a nice small plot with a tree and colorful flowers.
I wish more of the block was like that. Oh well, it's still a nice street with some good art on it these days. I hope you enjoyed this look at it.
