St. Vartan Park Garden
The St. Vartan Park garden has become a treasured Midtown Manhattan oasis, a fully accessible public garden of more than a quarter acres.
St. Vartan Park Conservancy serves as steward of the green space in cooperation with NYC Parks.
The St. Vartan Park garden hosts schoolchildren on May 24, 2024
Community Celebrates Fully Accessible Garden
“The addition of the pathway is the fifth and final phase of the garden’s equity plan, which is ‘to provide publicly accessible green space for all by prioritizing inclusivity, diversity, mental health and other community needs,’ according to the St. Vartan Park Conservancy. ”
The St. Vartan garden on the morning of snowfall, February 12, 2025
“Dozens of neighbors, community leaders and elected officials gathered at St. Vartan Park in Murray Hill on Saturday to celebrate the opening of its enhanced entrance and new garden pathway, which will improve accessibility for visitors with disabilities . . . ‘The St. Vartan Park Conservancy team is thrilled that this upgrade further expands the inclusivity and equity for this glorious green oasis,’ said Kevin O’Keefe, founder and president of the organization. ‘We are thankful to be part of this community, which came together to deliver a public good that can be enjoyed for generations to come.’”
“Made possible by the Soloviev Foundation in partnership with the St. Vartan Park Conservancy and NYC Parks via the Adopt-a-Park program, the garden entrance and pathway now grants ADA-compliant access to facilitate enjoyment for all.”
An artist creates a tree rendering in the St. Vartan Park garden on May 28, 2023
Entrance
The garden entrance is at 617 First Avenue, midway between East 35th Street and East 36th Street on the west side of the avenue.
Hours
The garden is typically open to the public during park hours from Tuesday through Sunday and closed during and after heavy rain and other inclement weather.
Wildlife and Flowers
Please visit the Conservancy’s Wildlife page to view some of the animal species spotted in the garden and the Flowers page to see some of the flower types enjoyed by visitors.
“. . . there’s something magical . . . overflowing with lush greenery and beautiful flowers. . . a different kind of escape and cool way to commune with nature . . . this section of St. Vartan Park has long been closed to the public, but the gates recently swung open to allow visitors to explore . . . the area was inaccessible . . . that’s no longer the case.”
Students from St. Vartan Park neighbor Maryel School appear in the park garden on May 24, 2024, as part of a St. Vartan Park Conservancy-hosted field trip
“A gated-off garden in a Midtown park will finally reopen to the public this month, prompting celebration from neighbors . . .”
A young visitor enjoys his view in a St. Vartan garden leaf pile on December 29, 2022
An American robin feeds hatchlings in a nest in the St. Vartan Park garden on May 28, 2023
“. . . Murray Hill residents and neighbors were excited to see the gated doors opened to the public . . .”
The Chrysler Building, shown on August 9, 2024, is among the New York City landmark buildings in view from the St. Vartan Park garden
Garden visitors participate in a free children’s book reading and giveaway hosted by St. Vartan Park Conservancy on Earth Day on April 22, 2023
Transformation
“The garden’s long-awaited opening was celebrated by many . . . ”
St. Vartan Park Conservancy founder Kevin O’Keefe (right) meets with New York City Council Member Keith Powers in the St. Vartan Park garden on July 24, 2023
Before he founded St. Vartan Park Conservancy, Kevin O’Keefe led an advocacy campaign that successfully opened the city-owned space to the general public after decades of closure.
Following a fall 2021 trial period tor public use, then a winter of daily stewardship by O’Keefe, the garden was opened for perpetual public use starting in the spring of 2022 in coordination with the launch of the Conservancy.
In 2024, NYC Parks designated the Conservancy official steward of the garden. Nine months later, The Soloviev Foundation generously provided a fully accessible enhanced entrance and pathway for the garden in cooperation with the Conservancy.
“Kevin O’Keefe is the chair of Community Board 6’s Environment and Parks Committee, and when he was appointed to the job in November of last year, he started started trying to figure out the story behind the locked garden . . . The more he learned, the more frustrated O’Keefe became . . . ‘ ‘If you look at the map, Midtown Manhattan is starved for green space between First and Tenth Avenue,’ he said. ‘I talked to a lot of people, and they told me there was this understanding between [a NYC Parks employee] and the city that it couldn’t be changed.’ . . . the garden will open . . .”
The St. Vartan Park garden, with donated birdhouse on September 10, 2024, is across the street from The River School (P.S. 281)
“The small, lush garden in St. Vartan Park is finally open to the public . . . decades after it was first fenced off . . . It marks the beginning of a two-month trial opening . . . Neighbors . . . contended that the garden was a ‘bastion of inequity’ . . . ‘Let’s spread the word: This open space is now open to all,’ CB6 parks committee chair Kevin O’Keefe wrote in a tweet.”
Five-Phase Equity Plan
Two visitors from Queens enjoy the garden on August 30, 2021, the day after NYC Parks agreed to open the space for use by the general public for a two-month trial period that would turn permanent
On November 23, 2024, a celebration was held to mark the first day that a fully accessible enhanced entrance and new pathway were introduced in the garden, generously provided by The Soloviev Foundation in cooperation with St. Vartan Park Conservancy.
St. Vartan Park Conservancy in cooperation with NYC Parks and The Soloviev Foundation has completed a garden equity plan that values inclusivity, diversity, mental health and other community needs.
The five-phase plan:
1. Convince NYC Parks to open the garden to the general public for a trial run and steward the space to show that the garden should stay open [2021-2022]
2. Open the garden on a permanent public schedule and launch St. Vartan Park Conservancy to bring more progress to the garden, park and park community [2022]
3. Remove the garden’s inner wire fencing that had blocked entry to a significant part of the garden [2023]
4. Launch public programming and extended public hours for the garden [2023-2024]
5. Provide garden accessibility to visitors of all abilities [2024]
“. . . the St. Vartan Park public garden became a beacon of accessibility. . . . The Soloviev Foundation in partnership with the St. Vartan Park Conservancy, ensure the garden is a welcoming green space for all New Yorkers.”
To help the all-volunteer St. Vartan Park Conservancy further enhance the free St. Vartan Park garden experience and other elements of the park, simply click the Donate button above to make a 100-percent tax-deductible contribution. Thank you.
St. Vartan Park Earth Celebration preparation in the St. Vartaq Park garden on April 13, 2024
NYC Parks’ Mark Vaccaro and Partnerships for Parks’ Ashley Kuenneke visit the St. Vartan Park garden on May 9, 2022
Retrospection
STORIED REVOLUTIONARY WAR BATTLE THIS WEEK IN 1776 STARTED AT COVE WHERE GARDEN NOW RESIDES
September 18, 2024 — Under clear morning skies 248 years ago this week, some 4,000 British and Hessian troops landed by water in Kips Bay in an attack on General George Washington's Continental Army.
The cove that served as the Brits' landing in the storied Revolutionary War battle includes where the St. Vartan Park garden (pictured on August 28) now resides on First Avenue between East 35th Street and East 36th Street.
On September 15, 1776, a Sunday, five British warships sailed to about 200 yards from the cove and unleashed a flotilla of flatboats toward land on what would become known as the Battle of Kips Bay. The attackers overwhelmed the Continental Army, leading to British control of Lower Manhattan where the city was then concentrated.
At the time, years before the bay was landfilled, the cove included water and shoreline located where the park garden would rise in the 20th century. That section of the bay is where "Keps Bay" text appears on the 1770 map (top map) drawn by Bernard Ratzer from surveys conducted in 1766 and 1767.
The landing (with the approach depicted in the above 1777 painting by Robert Cleveley) came 35 years before the city adopted the grid plan for numbered streets and avenues. Maps of the grid plan (including the first, in 1811 by William Bridges, pictured) illustrate where landfill would eventually bring a seamless First Avenue (the southernmost avenue on the grid map, with "Kip's Bay" text shown between 35th and 37th Streets).
Bruce Blevin Jr., a field artillery lieutenant in the 1944 Normandy 'D-Day' attack that would become known as the largest amphibious invasion in military history, addresses the Kips Bay landing in detail in his 1956 book Battle of Manhattan. Blevin allows readers to visualize where the battle fits into modern addresses, an approach the author called "terrain appreciation."
Wrote Blevin, "The cove was a little less than a city block deep, and it ran from what is now Thirty-second Street to about Thirty-eighth Street, with a small promontory, like a widow’s peak, jutting out from the shore near the center of the crescent, at about Thirty-fifth Street.
"Back of this promontory — a hundred feet east of Second Avenue on Thirty-fifth Street — stood the old Kip farm-house . . . Behind it was the meadow [British Army commander in chief William] Howe expected to use as an assembly area."
Students from P.S. 281’s environment-focused Green Team with their advisor Adriana Romano visit the garden for a St. Vartan Park Conservancy event on May 9, 2022S
“... locked behind a high iron fence at the First Avenue edge of the park is what the Parks Department website calls a ‘secret garden’: a pretty, grassy greensward planted with mature magnolia trees, tulips, irises, and rose bushes. In truth, it is not so much secret — anyone can peer in — as it is private. It’s off-limits to all but the children and parents of St. Vartan Preschool, a small playgroup that meets there on weekday mornings under the guidance of . . . a Parks Department employee . . . for more than two decades. And the secret is out . . .
St. Vartan Preschool had access to it, but not the community.’ On its website, the school boasted of a ‘pristine’ and ‘private’ garden ‘where the children can run freely.’ But the school served a tiny number of students — perhaps a dozen at a time — and admissions, as far as [Kevin] O’Keefe could tell, seem to be based on . . . whims and the requirement that parents attend with their children, ruling out families in which both parents work . . .
The more he learned, the more frustrated O’Keefe became.. . . a pack of local Cub Scouts used to work in the garden, picking up trash and pulling weeds, and although their labor was welcome twice a year, that was the only time they were.
And then there was the thing with Tom Brady’s son . . . a local mother, Erica Rand Silverman . . . noted that she and her 8-year-old had walked past the garden a few weeks earlier and spotted what looked like a private picnic . . . O’Keefe said that when he brought it up with [the Parks Department employee], she’d responded, ‘Oh, well, that was Tom Brady’s son.’
’It needs to be open to the community — we started out with that in mind,’ said O’Keefe. ‘But this so-called preschool took this space that was supposed to be for the public good and turned it into a bastion of inequity.’
Parks doesn’t yet have a date for when the garden will open, but there will be a trial period this fall . . . When it does open, it will be the first time in many months that anyone besides [the Parks Department employee], her family, and her occasional child-of-a-supermodel-and-a-quarterback guests will have passed beyond the gates.”
The historic Kips Bay Brewing Company building at 650 First Avene (with four floors being added) and the United Nations headquarters (behind the construction) are among the buildings seen from the park garden on July 30, 2024
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine collaborates with a student from P.S. 281’s environment-focused Green Team at a May 9, 2022, St. Vartan Park Conservancy planting activity in the St. Vartan Park garden
The southwest corner of the park garden, here during snowfall on January 7, 2022, is across the street from the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations
A view of the St. Vartan Park garden on March 29, 2025
A view of the St. Vartan Park garden on March 29, 2025
Two young St. Vatan Park visitors check in on daffodils in the park garden on March 24, 2023
The park garden (left) appears in the 1983 Universal Pictures movie ‘Scarface’ when the title character, played by Al Pacino, drives north on First Avenue
Catch a glimpse of the St. Vartan Park garden in this clip with Robert De Niro from the 1984 feature film ‘Falling in Love’
The park garden, here in the summer of 1944, served as a “victory garden” during World War II | Edward Meyer photography courtesy of Library of Congress
“[St. Vartan Park’s] eastern end—the only peaceful-looking, green section—lies locked behind iron bars.”
The park garden (foreground) on July 3, 1936 | Photograph shot from the roof of a six-story First Avenue building courtesy of MTA Bridges and Tunnels
“Athough the era of social reform in the early 20th century was still driven by government and charitable organizations, in many ways farm gardens were early manifestations of a community gardening aesthetic . . . farm gardens existed in one form or other through the 1960s . . . included St. Vartan’s Park, which opened in 1931.”
First Avenue view toward the park garden and the Chrysler Building on September 11, 1931, after the installation of the garden’s ‘Colonial House’ (behind umbrella) | P.L. Spear photograph courtesy of New York Public Library
“During the Second World War the United States . . . experienced significant food shortages, as the majority of the country’s food supply was being sent overseas to aid in the war effort. In response, government organizations encouraged citizens to plant ‘victory gardens’ to help ease the burden . . . As hard as it may be to believe today, there was a . . . sizable garden . . . located in Midtown, spreading its leaves in the shade of the Chrysler Building . . . In addition to growing food, victory gardens provided the added benefits of boosting morale and creating communities throughout the United States.”
The park garden appears between First Avenue and the park building in 1939 | P.L. Sperr photograph courtesy of New York Public Library
An early-1930s view of the garden at what was then known as St. Gabriel’s Park shows the steeple of St. Gabriel’s church to the left of the Chrysler Building | P.L. Sperr photograph courtesy of New York Public Library
The park’s garden lies west of First Avenue on January 7, 1939 | Photograph courtesy of MTA Bridges and Tunnels
The park garden appears on right in a view from the corner of First Avenue and East 34th Street on January 7, 1939 | Photograph courtesy of MTA Bridges and Tunnels
“A new garden was opened . . . on July 20th, 1931, and was used by over 5,000 children during the summer. The crops were very good considering that the site of the garden was formerly covered by broken concrete and stone, which was partially removed and soil added . . . within the shadows of the Empire State Building, offers a very pleasing contrast to that modern, very busy hive of industry, as it presents . . . a Department of Parks Children’s Garden, with its trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetables planted and cared for by children of the neighborhood. It suggests peace and rest within its green borders as the quaint little Colonial House (used as an office and tool shed) peacefully nestling within its shrubs, recalls the quotation, ‘Let me live in a house by the roadside where humanity passes by.’”
Left: In 1929, the park’s eastern end on First Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets, where the St. Vartan Park garden resides today, appears on the lower left (across the street from a Con Edison steam station, which stood until the plant's 1990s demolition) | P.L. Sperr photograph courtesy of the City of New York
Right: The garden lies to the right of the southeast entranceway to the park on February 21, 1931, flanked by the 1931 Empire State Building and the 1930 Chrysler Building | Byron Company photograph courtesy of New York Public Library
“. . . a large, unused plot, at the east end of the park, surrounded by an iron picket fence, was put to use as a ball field. The fence was removed and the ground drained and graded.”
A view of First Avenue captured on March 23, 1928, shows the the gate-enclosed St. Vartan Park garden between 35th and 36th Streets | P.L. Sperr photograph courtesy of the City of New York
“A large plot at the easterly end of the park . . . had been left unimproved and was surrounded by a solid wooden fence . . . The cutting off of this plot took a considerable portion from the already very limited park area of this section of the city. There being no particular reason why this plot should not be made available at once, the fence was taken down, the old tool house removed and the ground levelled and graded. A wooden rail fence was then erected and the plot thrown open and has since been used as a baseball ground . . .”
In 1885 (left) and 1931 (right), shots taken northward on First Avenue from north of 34th Street show where the St. Vartan Park garden currently resides between 35th and 36th Streets | Photography courtesy of New York Public Library
A journey through the park’s history is presented through images and publication excerpts on this page and this site’s History, About, Events, Playground, Field, Basketball, Handball, Pickleball, Permits, Building, Wildlife, Swish and Posts pages.
