Hi friends, welcome back! Spring is in full bloom here in NYC, especially at the West Side Community Garden Tulip Festival. I discovered this spot last year and knew I had to return to see all the tulips. If you haven’t seen them yet, they’ll be on display until mid-May. The garden is located at 123 W 89th Street in between Amsterdam and Columbus Ave, and open from early morning until dusk. While I visited, the garden was full of giggles from the kindergarteners doing some kind of school project.
This garden used to be a vacant lot for illegal activities and garbage dumping when the Upper West Side was undergoing revitalization in the 1970s. In 1976 neighbors and parents of the schools nearby began cleaning the land and transformed it into a safe and clean garden. They also teamed up with the Trust For Public Land to get the garden incorporated as a non-profit and strike a deal with the developer that owned the land. Thankfully as part of the deal, the developer required the garden be free and always accessible to the public every day.
The park is now funded by grants, donations, and volunteers. In addition to the tulip festival, the garden also hosts concerts, an arts and crafts festival, Fourth of July BBQ, movie nights, and a Shakespeare festival. It would be nice if every neighborhood had such a beloved community space.
There are over 13,000 tulips planted each year for the festival and I love the variety of colors.
The garden also has little plots of vegetables and pots the members can claim, but they’ll have to be patient because there’s an estimated three-year waitlist.
I enjoyed stopping by and seeing everyone enjoy the community space. They do such a great job curating the garden and you can tell the love and care poured into it.
All these varieties of tulip add a lovely splash of colour to this little piece of countryside in the big city.
They really do add some color and brighten peoples day.
Those tulips are beautiful and it sounds like a really wonderful community space!
They really created such a beautiful space!
I didn’t realize “free” and “accessible” were part of a developer’s vocabulary ha. How refreshing. I also don’t know anything about tulips but I assume the blooms are short-lived (weeks?) Also, it’s nice to see the space is respected (helped by the fences and hours restrictions). I hope someone turns that center circle into a really nice lawn or mini-meadow.
The developer even paid for half the park, shocking! Although I think he got rights to build higher somewhere else I think so not totally charity haha. I believe different tulips have different bloom times, but they are 1-3 weeks, so short. The center circle did need some love!
No one flower variety shouts spring so loudly as tulips. Just gorgeous in all there colour variety Lyssy Thanks for sharing. Allan
You’re absolutely right! They did a great job planting.
Oh how amazing, I love it. What a beautiful space!
Such a beautiful little garden!
What a splendid splash of colour to a once deprived area that has now been revived as a much loved community garden Lyssy.
I’m so happy they were able to revive the space, it’s such an enjoyable garden for everyone.
Oh my goodness, just look at all the wonderful and colourful flowers, Lyssy. While not too big, too small or too bright, the tulip flower is just right! Thanks for sharing, and have a wonderful day. Aiva xx
Tulips are such beautiful flowers and bring such joy to a space! Glad you enjoyed this 🙂
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Fabulous garden Lyssy
They did a great job with the garden!
Despite its rough history, the plot of land has turned into an incredible and flourishing little community! So many colorful tulips that are eye-catching and worth a visit. Thanks for sharing, Lyssy 🙂
I’m glad the community prevailed and were able to make this beautiful park. The tulips are so pretty and seem to brighten everyones day 🙂
So colorful !
I loved all the colors 🙂
How fabulous!
Such a fabulous garden!
Absolutely stunning! Congrats to all concerned.
Such a beautiful garden!
Tulips are among some of my favourite spring flowers. What a lovely and colourful display. I’d say a garden is a much better use of space compared to a dumping ground for garbage!
They are some of my favorites too, they’re so colorful and happy! It’s a way better use, especially because there are three schools on the block.
This is a stunning garden.
I think you wrote about this garden before and its incredible transformation. What a gorgeous space, it is magical.
It snowed here yesterday, so I appreciate that I can vicariously enjoy spring through this post (and your Central Park ones that I’m about to read that look like they’re full of flowers too – I’m a little behind, so don’t mind all the notifications as I get caught up).
What a beautiful spot, all the flowers lovely but the pink and purple mix particularly so. I remember your original post about this spot, I’m glad it’s continuing to thrive.
This looks like such a beautiful festival, and I am impressed at the different color variations of them too. It seems like a magical spot with all the elegant flowers!
Beautiful garden!I wanted to find out if you guys give away tulip bulbs?