Elisabeth Street Garden
DIARY OF AN AUTUMN IN NEW YORK
I wrote to a friend on a postcard the other day, telling her how I still couldn’t understand how such a chaotic city brings me so much peace. Its unpredictability, noise, and occasional maddening pace somehow surprise you with pockets of clarity and assisted happiness, making it impossible to disconnect from everything it offers. It asks a lot from you, no doubt, but it always gives back a little more. Something I’ve never quite managed to find anywhere else.
In a life where nothing—or almost nothing—seems to arrive at the right moment, this city reads you as if it could see through to your core, trying to decipher what your body needs. That same body, unsure of what it truly wants, begins to move as if weightless, as if the outside world doesn’t matter, as if the burdens within don’t hurt anymore. The emotional scan that New York performs is in direct communication with the gods of this place. And for someone like me, who at times simply needs someone to take the reins and show the way, I let myself be drawn in by these siren songs promising to cradle me in a safe place.
I remember getting lost a couple of years ago in the Nolita neighborhood. It was mid-winter and freezing cold. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I have a feeling the city knew. I stumbled upon a gate filled with locks on Mott Street, and one lock stood out—a beautiful heart. Behind that gate was an oasis, a garden created and cared for by the local residents. Inside, probably because of the cold, there was no one around. For a while—just the right amount of time—I was alone with the statues under a ray of sunlight that seemed to be waiting for me. The exaggerated noise of the Big Apple didn’t disappear but somehow softened.
A few days ago, I took a friend there. Before we arrived, I told him it was a magical place. Magical places are only magical if the person visiting knows how to see them. Luckily for us, it worked again, but this time the garden was full of people. In every corner, there were people eating, talking, reading, gazing at the flowers and statues, closing their eyes under the sun’s rays, listening to the city, meeting others, breathing…
At Elisabeth Street Garden, they host poetry readings, summer movie nights, yoga classes, and cultural events. It’s open to everyone, and there’s always someone there to greet you. Now, they want to tear it down because the city wants to build more housing, more concrete, more impersonal things. The neighbors are still fighting to prevent that. I wonder why we insist on stripping the soul from everything that has one. But I love witnessing how people create and conquer these small bubbles amid the chaos. I love seeing that garden full of people, and I love having it all to myself at times. I love that we all feel it belongs to us, even just a little bit. I love the sense that no one’s going to let go of its hand.
I guess what happens with New York is that it has everything: it’s both angel and demon. It’s possessed by the most extreme individualism, and yet it’s also infused with a communal essence that envelops you. It wants to be family, party, and refuge, desperately trying not to lose its humanity.
For me, New York isn’t in those tourist landmarks that fill the guidebooks. It’s not in Times Square or its observation decks. It’s not in the highlighted points on a map. New York is in its neighborhoods, in streets closed off on Sundays so the neighbors can enjoy them, in shared puzzles at the libraries, in the objects people leave outside their homes for others to take, in the cooperative supermarkets, and in a small garden in the middle of a noisy street.
New York is, without a doubt, in those oxygen bubbles where life moves at a different pace, where people look each other in the eye, smile, ask questions, listen, and share. New York is a massive hug from people who want to take care of each other. At least, that’s what I experience here. That’s what I feel.
My books | Instagram |Â Spotify
P.S. This text is part of an original article published in the Spanish edition of Elle Magazine. You can read it here.
*Want to know more about me? Click here
**If you enjoyed this Hanami, please share it with others!