2. Elizabeth Street Garden Houses an Olmsted Gazebo from a Gilded Age Mansion
Elizabeth Street Garden is one of the defining features of Nolita. The outdoor space filled with sculptures was created by gallery owner Allan Reiver in 1991 in an abandoned city-owned lot. The garden is known for its eclectic array of sculptures and pieces of architectural salvage, including a small sculpture of a little boy pulling a thorn from his foot. Amid sculptures of lions, Roman columns, and mythological figures is an iron gazebo, which was sourced from a Gilded Age estate like many of the garden’s artworks.
The gazebo has ties to renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. When Olmsted passed away, his two sons, John and Frederick Jr., kept the family business alive under the name of Olmsted Brothers. One of their first commissions was at the Burrwood Estate in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island owned by Walter Jennings, a director and secretary of the Standard Oil Company.
Jennings picked Carrere & Hastings, the architect duo behind the New York Public Library’s main branch, to design his five-story, 50-room mansion. The Olmsted brothers were hired to design gardens on the estate’s 400 acres, including an elaborate iron gazebo now found at the Elizabeth Street Garden. At the estate, the gazebo stood in front of a grassy clearing, framed by a sculpture on either side.