Manhattan · New York County
El Jardin del Paraiso
NYC Parks
- Location
- East 4th Street between Avenues C and D, East Village / Loisaida
- Size
- 0.73 acres
- Hours
- Seasonal, typically weekends
- Type
- NYC Parks
El Jardin del Paraiso (The Garden of Paradise) is a community garden in the Loisaida section of the East Village, one of the most celebrated and fiercely defended community gardens in New York City.
Loisaida, a Spanglish pronunciation of 'Lower East Side,' is the name the neighborhood's Puerto Rican community gave to the area east of Avenue A. The community gardens of Loisaida were created in the 1970s and 1980s when residents transformed vacant lots left by abandoned buildings into green oases.
The East Village community gardens were threatened with destruction in the late 1990s when the city planned to sell the land for development. A fierce activist campaign, led by garden advocates and supported by celebrities, preserved many of the gardens.
El Jardin del Paraiso features tropical plantings, murals, a casita (a small wooden structure modeled after rural Puerto Rican houses), and gathering spaces that serve as a cultural anchor for the Loisaida community.
El Jardin del Paraiso represents the community garden movement at its most powerful: a place where Puerto Rican cultural identity, environmental activism, and neighborhood self-determination created a genuine paradise from urban rubble.