Patti Smith performed at a New York City rally Tuesday as part of an effort to prevent a downtown park from being converted into affordable housing.
The Elizabeth Street Garden, located between between Spring and Prince streets, has long been a community gathering place for artists and city dwellers. However, the city — which owns the land — announced plans to transform the space into an “urban oasis,” a move that longtime SoHo icons like Smith, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese have previously lobbied against.
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On Tuesday, a rally was held by those trying to preserve the garden, with Smith staging a performance that included a rendition of “Peaceable Kingdom”:
“The Elizabeth Street Garden is an entirely unique public sanctuary, where art, nature, literature and activism peacefully abide,” Smith previously wrote in an August 2024 letter to Mayor Eric Adams lobbying on the garden’s behalf. “I have been privileged to read poetry and sing in the Garden’s serene yet celebratory gatherings, attended by people of all ages, friends and neighbors, tourists with their children.”
Smith continued, “The Garden is not only an oasis of greenspace within our city, but truly stands as a work of art. The effort to save it is reflective of a mass effort to preserve the nature and ever evolving character of New York City.”
To the city’s credit, their plan includes building affordable housing for low-income and LGBTQ senior citizens; according to NY1, nearly 25 percent of all seniors in the five boroughs live in poverty, and more than 61 percent are “rent-burdened.”
While Smith acknowledged the city’s well-meaning intentions for the space, “Affordable housing and greenspaces are both essential assets and should not be pinned against each other.”
The non-profit organization that manages Elizabeth Street Park previously issued a federal lawsuit in an effort to protect the space under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), and thus protect it as part of the Conservation Land Trust.
“Every day the City chooses not to seriously consider these alternative site proposals, we risk losing another opportunity to create affordable housing in the neighborhood,” the organization wrote. “This is not a choice between saving the Garden and building affordable housing — it is about rejecting false dichotomies and doing everything we can to preserve the one-of-a-kind Elizabeth Street Garden while achieving affordable housing for those who need it most.”