Beloved Harlem Garden Nears Its End As Development Approaches

HARLEM, NY — When Naomi Velez reflects on the time she has spent running a community garden on a once-vacant lot in West Harlem, her mind often returns to the sunflowers.

She and her fellow volunteers planted a row of the towering yellow plants last summer, lining the garden's entrance on West 134th Street. As neighbors stopped to take pictures, one 12-year-old girl who lived nearby approached Velez to thank her.

"She came just to tell me that she had never seen a sunflower before, and she was so grateful that those sunflowers were there, because it makes her so happy," Velez recalled. "Out of all the things that happened there, that stayed with me."

It was emblematic of the impact that the Space of Grace Community Garden has had during its more than four years brightening the block between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. Having opened in the wake of a series of shootings that rattled the neighborhood, the garden has instilled a sense of community and safety by hosting performances, holiday celebrations and potluck dinners, serving as a public art venue, and growing fresh produce.

But its days may be numbered: last week, the developer that owns the garden site filed plans with the city to build an eight-story apartment building that would take up the entire area now occupied by Space of Grace.

Garden organizers have always known its lifespan might be limited. Formerly owned by the nonprofit August Aichhorn Center, the property at 521 West 134th St. was sold for $2.9 million last spring to the company Haussmann Development.

As that sale loomed, garden volunteers enlisted the help of neighborhood leaders, hoping to convince the new owners to make space for the garden in the future development. That included Dan Cohen, a local community board member and housing advocate who said his talks with Haussmann's leadership had been cordial, but ultimately not fruitful.

"They’ve been very tolerant of the community garden on the space," Cohen told Patch. "But they also indicated they were going to go forward with their plan to develop the site."

Josef Goodman, the principal at Haussmann, told Patch on Tuesday that he plans to start construction by the end of March. About 30 percent of the rental units will be affordable — though income levels have not been decided — while the rest will be market-rate, he said.

Goodman called the garden "a wonderful thing," noting that he had allowed it to remain for more than a year after buying the lot. But helping to alleviate New York's desperate housing shortage is a compelling reason to build on the site, he argued.

"We live in a city in which we’re always trying to find enough space for affordable housing, for free-market housing and for community gardens," Goodman said. "I think here, it makes sense to deliver more affordable units. I’m otherwise very supportive of everything [the garden is] doing."

Indeed, as fights over other small green spaces play out in different parts of the city, some have argued that building more housing should take priority over preserving community gardens. The garden movement began in the 1970s as a way of beautifying lots that would otherwise have sat empty for years — a far cry from today's New York, where demand is high and space is in short supply.

"Go in the garden"

The new building on 134th Street will include 28 apartments and stand 80 feet tall — about two floors above the other low-rise buildings that line the block. Renderings shared with Patch show it will be clad in gray-brown brick, with large windows and upper-floor patios.

Velez said Tuesday that she would not push back against the development, though she planned to ask Haussmann to make space at the construction site for garden organizers to retrieve their plantings and equipment. Once the garden is displaced, Velez said she might inquire about using space on the nearby NYCHA Manhattanville Houses campus, or else replanting some of the vegetation on neighboring tree beds.

Another thing comes to mind when Velez considers what the garden has meant to the neighborhood. Sometimes, when police officers sweep the area in response to noise or crime complaints, they have rounded up young men who had done nothing wrong — just been nearby when the call went out, Velez said.

Hoping to stave off any conflict when officers appear, Velez has advised the young men to take refuge in the garden.

"I would just tell them, 'Go in the garden, they can't bother you in there,'" she said. "They would just sit in the garden and they would not be bothered."

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