Ongoing Projects
GNA undertakes many neighborhood activities and projects that support the neighborhood and the quality of life of Gramercy residents. We host clean and green events around the neighborhood to keep the neighborhood pristine and safe, and we enhance the aesthetic quality of the neighborhood by sponsoring initiatives like the Bishop Crook Lamppost Project, which replaced the neighborhood's modern street lamps with the historic bishop's crook lampposts seen around the neighborhood.
In addition, GNA helps support local businesses and neighborhood schools by sponsoring events that help promote their development and future growth, like our popular Canine Parade, Taste of Gramercy Food Festival, and the annual Gramercy Art Show.
Here is a short list of the many community partnerships, boards, councils, and alliances GNA works with:
Achievements
GRAMERCY PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT
In the 1990s, GNA fostered the creation of the East 17th Street/Irving Place Historic District and the extension of the Gramercy Park Historic District. GNA also worked with other coalitions on the landmarking of Scheffel Hall, Union Square Savings Bank, Century Association Club House, Russell Sage Foundation and the Guardian Life Building. We are presently working to have the former Tammany Hall and the Guardian Life Annex designated as landmarks.
BISHOP'S CROOK LAMPOST PROJECT
Over the past 12 years, GNA has organized the removal of all 40 modern cobrahead lampposts in the Gramercy Park historic district, and their replacement with historic bishop’s crook lampposts, at an aggregate cost of more than $100,000. GNA raised all of the funds from donors throughout the Gramercy community. GNA completed that project in 2004, when the final 16 bishop’s crook lampposts were installed.
PARTNERSHIPS
GNA has improved our neighborhood by working with politicians to sponsor a law regulating the location, use and repair of newspaper boxes; the Department of Transportation (DOT) and police to improve traffic flow and neighborhood signage; the Flatiron Alliance to successfully discourage the Union Square BID from expanding into the Gramercy and Flatiron neighborhoods. The BID expansion would have imposed substantial additional assessments upon residential and business owners.
PUBLICATIONS
GNA has also funded the publication of two books on Gramercy history:
Gramercy: Its Architectural Surroundings, by Andrew Scott Dolkart, and Gramercy Park: An Illustrated History of a New York Neighborhood, by Stephen Garmey.