A Luxury Venue Commandeered A Public East Side Plaza For 20 Years, Neighbors Say

MIDTOWN EAST, NY — The owners of Guastavino's acknowledged Tuesday that the plaza outside the luxury event venue is public, as a group of Upper East Side and Midtown East residents sued over allegations that the space has been treated as a private garden for nearly two decades.

"Guastavino’s acknowledges that this is a public plaza," the event venue said in a statement to Patch. "The signage indicating that it is a private space has been removed."

The statement came as residents filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to have a judge formally declare the plaza beneath the Queensboro Bridge on East 59th Street public.

The lawsuit accuses Guastavino's of routinely excluding people from the plaza while using it for high-end weddings, galas and corporate events.

"It's not their private garden. It never was. This is public space," Sean Basinski, a neighborhood resident and lawyer involved in the lawsuit, said Tuesday.

Guastavino's said it is now working with the city on the future of the plaza.

"We are working with the City to ensure that the space remains a public plaza, and to come up with a path forward that allows Guastavino’s to safely utilize it for egress during events," the venue told Patch.

Basinski said his fight over the plaza began in 2020, when he brought a kettlebell there to work out and a security guard told him he wasn't allowed to use the space.

This past December, Basinski said, he was arrested after refusing to leave.

He eventually began requesting city documents and researching the site's history, which he said showed that the area was intended to remain publicly accessible.

Another plaintiff, Iskander Khan, told reporters Tuesday that he grew up in the neighborhood and remembers being kicked out of the plaza with his father when he was a child.

In the years since, Khan said, the plaza has "always felt like I'm trespassing."

Brice Peyre, a representative for Councilmember Virginia Maloney, whose district includes much of the surrounding East Side, also spoke in support of the residents Tuesday.

"We all know the old expression, 'Get off my lawn,'" Peyre said. "In this case, the people telling us to get off their lawn don't actually own the lawn."

For questions, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.