Mayor Mamdani laid the blame Wednesday on former Adams Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro for his administration’s decision to reverse course on a highly controversial plan to shut down lower Manhattan’s Elizabeth Street Garden and build affordable housing on the site.
During last year’s mayoral campaign, despite growing opposition, Mamdani backed sticking with the original plan to build housing. But Wednesday he criticized Mastro for moves he made as deputy mayor that complicated efforts to shut down the garden, with the mayor signaling the long saga around the garden may be coming to an end.
“The actions of former First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro made it nearly impossible for any future administration to be able to fulfill a vision of building housing on the Elizabeth Garden site,” Mamdani said at a Wednesday morning press conference in the Bronx.
Mamdani added that the city will instead build roughly 180 homes at 22 Suffolk Street, a city-owned plot that had been eyed by the city as a possible school site, and additional housing at 100 Gold Street, a project already underway. The Suffolk Street site had been presented by the Adams administration as a potential alternative.
Until last year, the city had planned to build 123 units of affordable housing for seniors on the SoHo plot, with a portion of those set aside for homeless New Yorkers.
But that plan sparked neighborhood backlash, with ritzy area residents like Patti Smith, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese weighing in. They said the space, which is filled with stone statues and shrubbery, provided a much-needed public green space.
Still, Adams plowed ahead with the plans to convert the green space to housing, Then, last summer, after hiring Mastro, Adams abruptly pulled the plug on the project. Mastro has ties to opponents of the project, which was dubbed Haven Green.
Adams’ newfound opposition to the project was cemented with a move in November to designate the garden as “parkland,” a move that makes construction on the plot far more difficult.
The developers on the project hit back shortly afterwards, filling a lawsuit claiming that Adams and Mastro had engaged in an illegal ploy to derail affordable housing to serve the garden’s supporters.
Mamdani weighed in as well. In an October 2025 podcast appearance with the outlet Hell Gate, Mamdani said he’d evict the garden to build housing within the first year of his mayoralty.
“My mother really disagrees with me on this, she tells me all the time,” he quipped.
Mastro responded Wednesday to the mayor’s comments.
“Even when Mayor Mamdani does the right thing and I praise him for it—like maintaining Elizabeth Street Garden as dedicated parkland and producing even more affordable housing in the process, just as our administration proposed, —he still takes a swipe at me,” Mastro said of the mayor’s comments.
“So another legal battle won, but apparently can’t win with him.”
Mastro has been a persistent thorn in Mamdani’s side, having been the lead attorney in suits against the mayor and his administration over the rent freeze for stabilized apartments and the rollout of the pied-à-terre tax. A Staten Island judge last week issued a temporary restraining order on the Mamdani administration over the controversial rollout of the second home tax.
In theory, Mamdani has at least one avenue to force the housing plan through. He could lobby the state Legislature to de-designate the parkland so that the units could be built — though his comments Wednesday suggest he will not be doing that.
Attorneys expect “the matter will be amicably resolved before the proposed return date” of Aug. 13, per court papers.