Sixth Street and Avenue B Community Garden (6th and B)

East Village

New York City

Art & Culture | History

An Active Community Garden Steeped in East Village History

6th St and Avenue B community Garden east village

6th St and Avenue B Garden Sign east village

6th St and Avenue B Garden info East Village

About Sixth Street and Avenue B Community Garden (6th and B)

& why it made the Carpe City list

After the 1970’s financial crisis, New York City was famously broke, and Manhattan was littered with rubble-filled vacant lots, abandoned buildings and trash-strewn alleys.
During this sad time parts of the East Village and Lower East Side resembled a war zone.
In 1973, the Green Guerrillas, led by Liz Christy, started a green thumb movement to clean up the vacant lots and turn them into community gardens.
This particular site was repurposed in 1982 and has become one of the most beloved community gardens in the Village.
Before getting a lease from the city’s Green Thumb program, the founding committee took on the task of clearing the rubble and wreckage from the 17,000 square foot site.
If it sounds like an episode of Parks & Rec, you’re not far off. Originally at risk of becoming a parking lot, local residents marched to the Community Board in opposition and won.
Then, again, just before the site was about to be leased to high-end housing developers, members doubled down on engaging the local community, hosting their first annual Corn Roast and Harvest Festival. Local clergy and an Onondaga Chieftain blessed the land and it has been a garden ever since.
From the late 80’s until 2008, this garden was home to the famous Tower of Toys. More on that below!
Want in? Today, community members pay annual dues for a 4’x8’ foot plot and contribute 4 hours of service to the garden each month.
Complete with a children’s garden and adventure playground, the garden is utilized by 200 children weekly.
Events include the original Harvest Fest, live jazz, plant and bake sales, movies, and more.
Learn More and Donate to the 6th St. and Avenue B Garden Here.

Carpe City Trivia

What was the garden's Tower of Toys?

You’ve heard the saying “one man’s trash is another’s treasure.” Well, artist and garden member Eddie Boros used his 4×8 plot to build a 65-foot makeshift sculpture of wooden planks and toys he collected from around the city. What he called street treasures, others labeled trash, and the Tower became a point of controversy in the neighborhood. The tower was dismantled after Boros’s death in 2007, due to the progressively rotting pieces authorities deemed a safety hazard, but its legend lives on as featured in the opening credits of NYPD Blue and as a stage prop in the musical Rent.

Tower of Toys 6th and B Garden — Tower of Toys in 6th Street and Avenue B Garden

This Eddie guy seems like an interesting character. Tell me more...

Eddie Boros was a local legend. He spent his entire life in a building on East 5th Street that overlooked the garden, paid $68 in rent at the time of his death in 2007, and was known for walking the streets barefoot and shirtless, but never without a string of pearls. He would sometimes climb to the top of his infamous Tower of Toys to catch the view, and even beat a drum or blow a horn from his perch. A recycling aficionado, in addition to continuously adding to his tower, he’d make bikes and airplanes for kids with junk he collected around the ‘hood. Oh, and according to friends, he could rip a phonebook in half with his bare hands – the long way.

Are there more community gardens like this one?

The garden was just one product of the Community Garden Movement of the 1970s. The Green Guerillas, an environmental non-profit dedicated to preserving urban gardens, began “seed bombing” vacant plots around the Lower East Side with seeds and fertilizer in an attempt to beautify neglected and abandoned sites. Today, there are at least 70 community gardens in the area.