In 2014, Lower East Side artist Jane Greengold drifted a concept to her neighbors: What if we took down the fence?
Flash forward, a brand-new park in Alphabet City at Avenue D and East 3rd Street developed by Davies Toews Architecture– a New york city office on AN‘s 2026 Twenty to See list– and community members is now open where a fenced-off grassy location formerly sat underused.
The 4,000-square-foot park serves NYCHA Lillian Wald Houses residents, and the Lower Manhattan community more broadly, thanks to a long-term effort called Opening the Edge. It was built in tandem with NYCHA, PARC Structure, and Style Trust for Public Area.
Mollie Serena, a Style Trust fellow, Rosa Rodriguez and Destiny Mata of Lillian Wald Houses, and others steered the resident-led, participatory design task, which entailed 25 conferences and lots of outreach occasions. The workshops were funded by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Customized weathered steel landscape edging made by OnSite FX defines green spaces from paved locations.(Naho Kubota)For Mata, a photographer and filmmaker, the park”already feels like our yard, “she informed AN.”Locals don’t have complete access to parts of East River Park since Typhoon Sandy and the restoration, so spaces like this ended up being crucial for the area.”