The Sphinxes Shall Keep Their Watch

After nearly a decade of legal battles, protests, and uncertainty, the fight to save the Elizabeth Street Garden appears finally to be coming to an end. The beloved sculpture garden in downtown Manhattan had long faced demolition, with the city seeking to raze it for affordable housing. Now, according to several sources, the city is expected to step back from those plans, bringing an extraordinary reprieve to a place whose survival had seemed increasingly uncertain.

I am especially pleased by the news because this little refuge has long been a favorite haunt of mine. Tucked away from the commotion of the surrounding streets, it is one of those increasingly rare corners of Manhattan where the city seems to recede. I often stop there with a cup of coffee, finding a shady place among the greenery and old stone where I can gather my thoughts and enjoy a little peace in its tranquil environs.

Much of the garden’s peculiar charm comes from the architectural fragments, statues, columns, urns, and weathered monuments scattered throughout the grounds. The place possesses something of the atmosphere of an old European garth, where nature and antiquity intertwine.

Of all its silent inhabitants, I am especially fond of the twin stone sphinxes. Reclining enigmatically among the foliage, they often invade my thoughts as I sit nearby. There is something wonderfully incongruous about encountering those ancient forms in Nolita, silent guardians of mysteries transplanted into a small garden between tenements.

The preservation of the Elizabeth Street Garden is about more than saving a patch of greenery. The city is crowded and dirty, and it needs more green spaces, not fewer. It also needs places that serve no immediately measurable purpose beyond beauty, contemplation, memory, and repose. The garden is one of those rare places. God willing, I will continue to sit there with my coffee, gathering my thoughts beneath the trees while the two sphinxes keep their inscrutable watch.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, August 12th, Feast of Santa Chiara d’Assisi