Itty Island on 24th Street and 10th Avenue is what it’s all about

We muse occasionally about the secret to happiness around here and the fact is that some days it will feel like a weapons-grade state secret and other days it will feel just about within reach. On those latter days, you might be paying little closer attention to your five senses taking in small delights like Itty Island on 24th & 10th, a resident-constructed mini-garden that we wandered around and narrated last weekend.

Characterized by its creators Alex Chapman and Pete Fehn as a “pollinator micro-meadow on the corner of 24th Street and 10th Avenue,” you will spot Itty Island first by its “gazing ball,” the glass-like installation in the middle which “reflects the ever-changing people, art, architecture, and plants of West Chelsea,” and the bamboo fence. Then there is the whole collection of plotted and planted green splashed with color, including wild bergamot, coneflower, and moonshine yarrow.

Aside from the obvious talent for execution design that went into Itty Island, what I like about it[ty] the most is that the two creators just kind of…did it. They did not ask questions; they did not ask permission; they did not ask for money (as far as I can tell)—they just got out of their apartments one day and decided to make something happen, plant-by-plant, day-by-day. That is an allegory for this entire block association, and an inspiration for doing something very similar in Chelsea’s upper west side. Stay tuned.