A Massive 21,300-Square-Foot Public Garden Oasis Opens In Midtown

The garden seeks to re-shape how we experience NYC by encouraging visitors to connect to their surroundings and to slow down and take pleasure in the world.

Brianna Perry - Staff Writer • November 18, 2022

Snøhetta Midtown Park — Courtesy of Snøhetta

This fall, Midtown welcomed a brand new public park and garden (the first new green space in Midtown in decades), filled with artisan food stands, a gorgeous waterfall, and all the greenery you can imagine to convince you it’s summertime year-round.

The project of international architecture, landscape, and interior design firm Snøhetta, this new public park occupies space at 550 Madison Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets.

A view looking through the new arch-topped Garden window added by Snøhetta to the redesigned lobby. The window allows for clear views through the tower from Madison Avenue. Photo: Barrett Doherty. — 550 Madison Garden Window / Credit Barrett Doherty

Unlike anything Midtown has ever seen, the design re-envisions the building’s public space as a generously expanded, densely vegetated garden, according to Snøhetta’s website. This urban garden includes 48 trees, 200 shrubs, 6,300 bulb plants, and 10,000 herbaceous understory plants.

The Garden is arranged as a series of immersive outdoor rooms, each designed to encourage social interaction. The bench above encircles a communal hearth that creates a warm spot to sit during the winter months. Photo: Barrett Doherty. — 550 Madison Garden Aerial / Credit Barrett Doherty

These, alongside other plantings, will encourage a variety of birds, butterflies, and other pollinators to thrive in this environment, creating the ultimate shared urban habitat. The 21,300-square-foot garden is nearly twice the size of the area’s previous public space.

“The half-acre Garden at 550 Madison is a welcoming new green space, offering a lush and elegant environment at the center of New York City,” states Erik Horvat, Managing Director of Real Estate at Olayan America. “The garden’s cutting-edge design and meticulous maintenance positions it among the most beautiful public spaces in the city, while providing a dynamic amenity to tenants of 550 Madison.”

Partially covered by a glass canopy, visitors will experience an indoor-outdoor feel, and the circular rooms invite them to linger as they wander through, allowing the garden to accommodate a variety of experiences for its visitors: to catch up and socialize with friends over lunch, relax next to the sounds of the waterfall, or simply connect back to nature in the middle of the Concrete Jungle.

The revitalized Privately-Owned Public Space (POPS) at 550 Madison Avenue provides a collection of sociable gathering spaces linking 55th and 56th Streets. The new Garden is located under a steel and glass canopy and is filled with trees, shrubs, and grasses that will delight visitors across the seasons. Photo: Barrett Doherty. — 550 Madison Garden North VIew / Credit Barrett Doherty

“Like many New Yorkers, we yearn to connect with the outdoors, and this collaboration with Olayan offered our team an opportunity to reposition the heroic 550 Madison tower for a new age while reestablishing how the tower meets the city,” said Craig Dykers, Snøhetta Founding Partner.

The garden oasis is open to visitors Monday-Sunday from 7a.m. – 11p.m. More info here.