Village Alliance Launches $2 Million “Project Green” Campaign to Transform Greenwich Village Streetscape

By Jean Tucker

Recently, Scott Hobbs, the executive director of Village Alliance, took me for a walk down 8th Street from his office to Astor Place Plaza. He was showing me examples of “Project Green,” a new fundraising initiative by the Village Alliance Business Improvement District (BID) to dramatically improve the green infrastructure of the Village.

As we walked eastward, he pointed out a series of tree beds with new tree guards and improved plantings arrayed like a string of pearls down the street. In Astor Place Plaza, he brought my attention to a row of safety planters spilling over with autumn greenery dividing the sidewalk from the busy bike lane along Lafayette Street. On the east side of the plaza, there were several large bioswales designed to soak up rainwater to ease street flooding. We also ran across one of the Village Alliance’s safety ambassadors whose job is to liaise with business owners and to keep an eye on general conditions. 

As I stood in the middle of Astor Place Plaza, I was suddenly struck by that magnified sense of place you sometimes feel when the street space opens up and you feel the scale of the buildings, the pedestrians and the traffic: hive-like, vertically-uplifting and mind-expanding. Sometimes I just have to stop and reflect on what an amazing neighborhood I live in. The question is, could it be made even better?

That’s essentially the question the Village Alliance asked, looking for the biggest and quickest way to improve the Village. Their answer is Project Green, an ambitious program developing new green infrastructure that aims to enhance pedestrian safety, to improve unadorned streets with new trees and plantings, and to develop a few attractive pocket parks with street seating.

The Village Alliance district is centered in Greenwich Village along 8th Street, to Astor Place and St. Marks Place, bisected by Sixth Avenue, Fifth Avenue, University Place, Broadway, Lafayette and Third Avenue. The BID provides sidewalk cleaning, safety patrols, seasonal landscaping and maintenance, as well as organization for local businesses to react to issues that impact commercial attractiveness and safety. The Village Alliance is funded primarily by property tax assessments to commercial properties and by occasional grants. Project Green is designed to go beyond these functions to accelerate new landscaping and safety infrastructure by tapping into more direct community funding. 

As Scott explained, “Green spaces are more than beautification; they’re essential infrastructure for a healthier, more sustainable, and more welcoming Village.”

“When I first got here, our budget for street improvements was very low,” said Scott. “We could maybe do one or two tree beds a year, which, in relation to our size, is not a lot. So we did a needs assessment just to see, what is the scope of issues that we can seek to address, and how much would that cost? How can we improve the area using city standards, doing projects that don’t require a review, and that can be implemented as soon as we get the money?

In making their needs assessment, the BID also discovered that treeless streets have a much higher vacancy rate. Money received from city and state government is very helpful but is limited to certain kinds of improvements and allocated to a general area perhaps going through the Parks Department for implementation but not necessarily to the streets focused on by the Village Alliance.  

Hoping to tap into the wealth and concerns of the residents of Greenwich Village, while focusing on speed of implementation, Project Green’s goals include:

• 120+ Enhanced tree beds to improve tree health and to add native perennial greenery.
• 110+ Pedestrian safety planters to separate roadways from sidewalk and crosswalk areas.
• 100+ New shade trees in large planters where in-ground planting is not possible to add shade and greenery along busy corridors.
• Tables and chairs for pocket parks.
• Shade trees in large planters for Ruth Wittenberg Triangle (at Sixth Avenue, between 8th and 9th streets) to provide welcome shade in an existing seating area. They set a goal of raising $2 million over the next five years. Since Project Green’s rollout in August, $300,000 has already been raised, most contributed by Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and NY State Senator Brian Kavanagh. Founding benefactors include NYU and Buchbinder & Warren and neighborhood benefactors include The Public Theater and 107 University Place. 

The Initiatives tab on the Village Alliance website includes before and after renderings showing examples of potential streetscape improvements. (villagealliance.org/projectgreen). A donate button allows one to contribute from $50 to $4,000 which will provide money that can be put to work immediately.
For those wanting to sponsor specific improvements which include an option of name recognition, choices include $2,500 for a pocket park table and chairs, $4,000 for a tree bed enhancement, and $8,000 for a large planter that can support a shade tree (including the tree and planting). Reach out to Village Alliance directly if you would like to make a major gift.

As an urban gardener and a Greenwich Villager, I know I’m ready to contribute. More trees, shrubs, grasses and perennials make our urban landscape more welcoming and healthful. I wish all of us would adopt a corner of our neighborhood to nurture plant life but in the meantime, we can help Village Alliance create new green infrastructure that can change our community’s trajectory: creating streetscapes that are designed to keep us safe as it helps us slow down and notice our surroundings, improve our moods and encourage interactions with others. And who doesn’t want to make Greenwich Village even better?