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.