El Sol Brillante Community Garden
The East Village is home to New York City’s community garden district. From 14th Street down to Houston Street, there are 47 public gardens nestled between apartment buildings. The largest is El Sol Brillante.
In the fall of 1976, four buildings were demolished as a result of private owner disinvestment in the Lower East Side. Urban homestead groups like the 11th Street Movement were eager to make use of the empty plot and rehabilitate the area. Neighbors and local leadership took it into their own hands to develop this garden and turned a pile of rubble into the beautifully diverse garden open today.