Parks and gardens

The gardens exist because the buildings burned down. That is not a metaphor.

Tompkins Square Park

The centre of the neighbourhood, and for most of its history the centre of its arguments. Ten and a half acres between Avenues A and B, from 7th to 10th Street.

It has been the site of labour demonstrations since the nineteenth century, the heart of Kleindeutschland, a gathering point through every subsequent era, and the location of the 1988 riot. It holds the General Slocum memorial fountain, a well-used dog run, basketball courts, and a population of regulars who have been there for decades.

It is also where the neighbourhood goes to sit, and on a warm Sunday it is one of the better places in Manhattan to understand how many different lives are being led on the same few blocks.

The community gardens

Through the 1970s and 80s, arson and abandonment left Alphabet City with hundreds of vacant lots. Residents cleared them by hand and planted.

What exists now — dozens of small gardens threaded between tenements, mostly east of Avenue A — is the direct result. Several are genuinely beautiful, several are eccentric in ways institutional parks are not permitted to be, and all of them are the product of decades of volunteer labour and, in many cases, a legal fight against the sale of the land.

Visiting them

Most are members' gardens, but registered gardens are required to open to the public for set hours during the growing season, and those hours are posted at the gate. Walk in when the gate is open. People are generally pleased that someone is interested.

Notable ones to look for include La Plaza Cultural, the 6th Street and Avenue B Garden with its towering sculptural tower built from salvage, and 9th Street Community Garden. There are many more, and finding them by wandering is the correct method.

Practical notes

Hours are seasonal and volunteer-dependent — a garden can be closed simply because nobody was available. Do not climb on things, do not pick anything, and ask before photographing people.

If you want a plot of your own, that is a longer process and it starts with turning up during open hours.