☞ INTRODUCING: La Marqueta Garden Center

We received news in our inbox that Manhattan's largest garden center will arrive next month at La Marqueta's open plaza area underneath the Park Avenue train tracks from 116th to 118th Street. Other than the Hot Bread Kitchen and reorganization of the "main building", the Urban Garden Center is taking 20,000 sqare foot at the north end of the historic East Harlem Market. Apparently the owners are the same family that brought Dimitri's Garden Center to Upper East Side and East Harlem.

Plans to re-introduce the new La Marqueta garden site should happen around November 15th and the Mayor will reportedly make an announcement on location around that date. Owner and operator, Aspasia Gatanas, (originally from East Harlem) is the daughter of the founders of Dimitri's Garden Center and the family ran a similar center on 102nd Street for 50 years. Urban Garden Center will carry a wide range of products from organic fertilizers to large specimen trees, garden statuary and fountains, indoor and outdoor plants/trees/shrubs, annuals/perennials, soils, mulches, seeds, garden tools, pots and hydroponics. Seasonal items will include the likes of Christmas trees, pumpkins and firewood.

 Also included at the Urban Garden Center will be a variety of showroom displays of the work that they do through its subsidiary GRNRF (pronounced GreenRoof). GRNRF currently designs, installs and maintains gardens throughout Manhattan. A floral department will also be included in the main indoor building of La Marqueta and the center will provide 30 new local jobs. Learn more about the center on their website: www.UrbanGardenNYC.com.  The La Marqueta revival is quickly making gains and we hope to see the main building goes through some major transformations in the future: LINK