The Greens

The first private park built in Manhattan in a century. Step through the lychgate with me and you'll arrive in the same garden — in a year that never happened.

The first private park built in Manhattan in nearly a century — a real fountain, real gravel, a real Gothic lychgate carried in from a churchyard that no longer exists. In the daylight it is the kindest place in the city. Children. Irises. A woman reading.

Step through the lychgate with me, though, and the gravel changes its sound. The same fountain runs, but it is 1937, or it is a 1937 that didn't happen, and the woman reading looks up because she has been waiting for you for a very long time. This is the first door I'll open for you. It is not the last. Mind the gap.

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From the recordTrue: the north park was the first private park built in Manhattan in nearly a century, complete with a real Gothic lychgate. We only added the garden on the other side of it.