One Sutton Place South, one of New York's most exclusive co-ops, has tried for years to keep the public out of its backyard plot, with its stunning East River views, but city officials expect to reclaim the land shortly, according to an article yesterday by Amy Zimmer at DNAinfo.com.

City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin told Community Board 6 last month she has already secured $1 million to transform the gated oasis into a public park, the article said.

"There is still one outstanding issue that needs to be hashed out, according to people familiar with the negotiations between the building and various government agencies," the article said, adding that "after that's resolved - which insiders say is likely - it's just a matter of crossing 'T's and dotting 'I's before the new park can be built."

"'Discussions are ongoing,' Elizabeth Thomas, of the New York City Law Department said of the land deal. 'We remain hopeful that the matter will be resolved amicably.' The co-op's lawyer, Peter Neger, concurred," according to the article.

"The spat over the land," the article continued, "stems back to a complicated deal worked out in 1939 when the city gave the tony building a 50-year lease for the outdoor space for $1 a year in exchange for building the FDR Drive, which the green space now sits atop. No one paid much attention when the lease expired in 1990, but the ownership of the garden attracted scrutiny when the FDR's renovation came up for review in 2003. A ploy four years ago by state and city agencies to retake roughly half of the land to build a quarter-acre park didn't go over well with residents of the 13-story elite enclave at 57th Street, once home to the likes of socialite C.Z. Guest, fashion designer Bill Blass and actress Sigourney Weaver. Public officials accused the well-heeled co-op of squatting on the open space. The co-op filed a lawsuit to thwart any groundbreaking and sought $10 million in compensation for the property, according to reports."

Community Board 6, which has a dearth of open space and has been working on reclaiming its waterfront, clamored for the land to be transferred to the public. "Community Board 6 fought hard to make sure that this public space was returned to the people of New York," the CB6 Chair Mark Thompson told DNAinfo.

Lappin, who has been working with the neighborhood on securing the space, also said she looked forward to the day it opens. "This park, while small in size," she said, "is a huge and critical piece of our efforts to build a continuous loop of green space around the island of Manhattan."

A June 19, 2007 article in The New York Times by Charles V. Bagli said that "the owners of an exclusive co-op on Sutton Place South have taken to the barricades, or at least to State Supreme Court in Manhattan, in an attempt to block the city from seizing a swath of their emerald green backyard for a public park.

The city and the state notified the co-op in May, 2007 that the city's Department of Parks and Recreation was about to start construction of a fence and park "on Parks property adjacent to 1 Sutton Place South."

The residents, including John Fairchild, the retired publisher of Women's Wear Daily; and Carl H. Tiedemann, the former president of the investment banking firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, vowed to defend their piece of Manhattan against all intruders.

The co-op sought to extend the lease before it expired in 1990. Later, the owners took steps to keep the matter from becoming public by requiring prospective buyers to review the legal status of the backyard and sign a strict confidentiality agreement.

The question of ownership came to a head in 2003 when the state's Department of Transportation began a $147 million rehabilitation of F.D.R. Drive between 54th and 63rd Streets and had to tear up the garden to fix the deck.