UES Developer Tears Up Popular Garden As Residents Protest

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Amid protests by tenants, a developer on Wednesday ripped up a row of planters that had brightened a drab stretch of York Avenue for nearly a century.

Since it was built in 1925, the six-story building at 1221 York Ave. had been lined by the narrow green strip, which also ran partway up East 65th and 66th streets. Every spring, the blossoming bushes turned heads in a neighborhood dominated by Weill Cornell Medical Center's gray towers.

"During covid it was the brightest spot on many, many blocks," said neighbor Laura Jackson. "It was something all the hospital workers during the early months of covid enjoyed on their way to or from work."

But Wednesday morning, crews arrived at the direction of the Stahl Organization, the real estate company that owns the building, which is also known as Socony Hall. Workers began tearing up the plants at the root, and plan to pour concrete over the site once the garden is gone.

"It’s an irreversible decision," said Kaitilin Griffin, who grew up in the building and staged a sit-in at the garden Wednesday with a half dozen residents in hopes of delaying the work.

"People are walking by here who live in the neighborhood and saying how sad they are to see it go," said resident Anne Teicher, who joined the demonstration.

The atmosphere was tense — at one point, police were called to the building, apparently at the owners' behest, said Griffin, whose elderly parents still live inside. (A Stahl spokesperson said the police were called due to safety concerns.)

The rationale for the demolition is a rat infestation that has plagued the building in recent months, and hasn't spared the garden. But Griffin, who works as a professional gardener for the city and has dealt with her share of rodents, said the Stahl Organization hasn't taken proper steps to contain the infestation, which stems from garbage collection, not the garden.

Residents say removing the planters betrays the original design of the building, which was conceived by the Rockefeller family as a way to bring "the garden tenement into Manhattan for the first time," as the New York Times reported.

Griffin also suspects ulterior motives for wiping away the garden. The Stahl Organization waged a 10-year battle with residents in the neighboring First Avenue Estate as it sought to demolish the tenement-style complex, and Griffin believes that trimming Socony Hall's decorative elements could help drive more tenants out of the already-emptying building.

The Stahl Organization was unresponsive to repeated requests by residents to preserve the garden, including personal appeals to president Gregg Wolpert and his family, Griffin said.

In a statement, a Stahl spokesperson said the garden was demolished on the advice of pest control experts.

"The experts have now told us that rats have been burrowing through the garden and that the solution is to permanently block the rats from borrowing in by sealing the garden with concrete," spokesperson Brian Maddox said. "Like our tenants we would appreciate some greenery in front of the buildings and in the courtyards and so we will be putting trees and flowering bushes in planters."

By Wednesday afternoon, the garden had been completely removed, leaving only a gray expanse of sidewalk — although the demonstrators managed to salvage about 25 plants and transplant them to a vacant site near the East River.

Griffin said the protest had been worthwhile, even if it was doomed from the start.

"None of us could live with ourselves if we sat upstairs in our apartment and watched this happen," she said.