Tudor City offers tranquil gardens in Manhattan

The Green Queen is making inroads into Tudor City. With her listing at 25 Tudor City Place, she’s eager to help some lucky buyer put down roots in this gardened corner of Manhattan. This development contains two gardens, which were planned in the 1920s by the forward-thinking developer Fred F. French, who conceived a plan for a high-rise, residential development nestled around a centrally placed, tranquil park, replete with amenities and services, and tailored to the needs of the middle class men and women flocking into the city each day.

The parks were central to French’s vision for Tudor City. While many grand residential buildings of the time were built around garden courtyards, French turned the convention inside out in Tudor City by placing the green spaces on the outside and orienting the buildings toward them. Tudor City, as is famously quoted, turned its back on the East River, which was at the time an industrial area of slaughterhouses and barge landings, all dominated by the coal-burning Con Edison plant. The pastoral tranquility of the parks were a welcomed relief from the noise and pollution along the river. They contained arbors and gazebos, fountains and tree-shaded walks, and an 18 hole miniature golf course with lighting for evening play. Tudor City was a success, and it’s buildings were renting out faster than they could be completed.

French died in 1936 but the firm he founded continued to own and manage the properties until 1972, when the Helmsley-Spear company bought Tudor City. A relentless battle by residents ensued against Helmsley’s plans to build giant skyscrapers on the open spaces. It all came to a head when a bulldozer rumbled down Tudor City Place at 6 AM on the Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend in 1986. An alert resident saw it coming and sounded the alarm. People poured into the street and under the leadership of community leader John McKean, blocked the bulldozer from entering the parks and then managed to secure an injunction against the planned destruction. Helmsley finally accepted defeat.

In 1987 Tudor City was sold to Time Equities, which undertook the conversion of its Tudor City buildings to cooperative ownership. Time Equities demonstrated its understanding of the importance of the parks to the community by donating them to The Trust for Public Land, a national conservancy organization dedicated to the preservation of such open spaces. The development rights of the parks were extinguished, which effectively eliminated any possibility of future development.

Tudor City Greens, Inc. was formed in January 1987 for the purpose of assuming ownership of the parks from The Trust for Public Land. In exchange for this transfer of ownership, The Greens granted an easement to The Trust that prohibits construction and bans unacceptable behavior in the parks.

The parks had suffered long years of neglect when Tudor City Greens took on the task of bringing them back to life. A Master Plan was developed in 1988 to guide the work. Improvements have included: adding new electricity and an irrigation system; repairing existing lighting and installing new lampposts; repairing sidewalks and upgrading and reconfiguring pathways to create new gathering areas; restoring the original wrought iron fencing and manufacturing new fencing where needed to replicate the original, and providing new Bistro chairs and benches and posting new park signage. Unhealthy trees and shrubs have been culled, soil quality restored with the yearly addition of fertilizer and mulch, and new plantings have been undertaken. All has been done with great care to preserve the urban nature of the parks and keep them in harmony with Tudor City architecture.

Looking toward the future, in 2001 Tudor City Greens commissioned a team of professional garden designers to create a new Master Plan. This provides an overall blueprint for new and replacement garden structures and amenities, plantings and any other needed improvements.Tudor City Greens sponsors a Spring planting day every year to add colorful annuals including Impatiens, Cuphea, Elephant Ears, Pansies, Lantana, Coleus and more.

Each Fall the Parks are planted with over 2,000 Tulips to join the naturalized Daffodils which welcome in the Spring.

Twice each year, in the spring and in the fall, neighborhood volunteers gather in the Greens to plant and help the Greens’ part-time gardener prepare the parks for a new season. Volunteer efforts and financial contributions are absolutely essential to keeping the Greens beautiful and publicly accessible.