A city construction crew leveled a community garden on the Lower East Side yesterday and 31 protesters were busted — just as a state judge was moving to bar the demolition.
“The city moved to destroy the garden before the court order could be obtained,” said lawyer Foster Maer, who represents the protesters.
“We were hoping to get the papers filed by noon. It’s Giuliani. It’s horrific. It’s government by deceit.”
The court injunction, issued by State Supreme Court Justice Richard Huttner in Brooklyn around the time of the demolition yesterday, temporarily prevents the city from “selling or physically altering” city-owned properties included in the Green Thumb program.
The East 7th Street park, between Avenues C and D, is in the program and would have been protected under the ruling.
But city construction crews got to the site first.
Using a bulldozer and heavy equipment, they took less than an hour to clear the lot — despite dozens of protesters who chained themselves to fences and pipes embedded in the ground in a vain attempt to save their gardens.
Police from the Emergency Service Unit used the “Jaws of Life” and metal saws to slice through the makeshift defenses.
“I’m scared, but I’m more scared for the garden, ” said Jean Roney, 31 — who had chained her neck to a pole with a large bicycle lock. “I came to show solidarity with all environmental causes.”
Frank Richard, 45, of Mineola, L.I., chained his hand to the bottom of a pipe sunk into the ground. His arm was in the ground up to his shoulder.
“I’m motivated to save this space. They are not going to bulldoze this space if I can help it,” he said.
The garden was one of more than 100 city-owned plots the Giuliani administration had targeted to auction off.
Last May, singer Bette Midler — joining with a nonprofit conservancy group in an 11th-hour, $4.2 million deal — saved 114 other community gardens from the auction block.
The Midler-founded New York Restoration Project bought 51 of the lots for $1.2 million, and The Trust for Public Land will acquire the other 63 lots for $3 million. Both groups plan to give the communities control of the gardens.
State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has argued that many of the community gardens may qualify as dedicated parklands and cannot be sold without approval from the state Legislature.
But Mayor Giuliani said “the reality is that the court did not stop this project. When people become out-of-control advocates, they’re not living in a real world anymore. A mayor has to live in a real world, trying to satisfy all of the competing needs of people.”
The two sides are due back in court March 1 for a full hearing.