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Read the press release here.

Tiny Beach in Hell's Kitchen Garden Needs New 'Ocean,' Sand and Fish

 Volunteers are raising money to restore Oasis Community Garden's "beach" play area for kids.
Oasis Community Garden
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HELL’S KITCHEN — Dirty sand, broken beach chairs and memories of swimming fish are all that remain of a small "beach" on West 52nd Street.

Volunteers at the Oasis Community Garden, between 10th and 11th avenues, have launched a fundraiser to restore the green space's beach area — a swath of sand where kids once played and watched fish swim in a bathtub — to its former glory.

“Our beach needs a facelift. We’ve had major erosion that’s depleted our sand,” the nonprofit group's GoFundMe page reads.

“The tub has sprung a leak and the fish have died. Our Adirondack chairs have spent too much time in the sun,” the note continues.

The public garden’s volunteers hope to raise money to replace the beach's play sand and broken chairs, volunteer Jenny Markovich said.

Funds will also go toward buying new fish, fixing the beach's bathtub and possibly buying a turtle.

An unexpected bathtub leak this past year led to the demise of the previous fish, volunteer coordinator Heather Holland Wheaton said.

The new fish will live in the upgraded rock- and plant-filled bathtub — which has a floating solar filter that keeps the water flowing — but they will move inside when the weather gets cold, Wheaton said.

The turtle may also share the bathtub with the fish, she added.

Funds would also be used to maintain the beach's "reading room" book box, as well as the buckets and shovels kids use to build sand castles, Markovich said.

The garden’s existing funds come from grants and donations, according to the online campaign, which had raised $100 of its $718 goal as of Tuesday afternoon.

“We want to make a nice beach, with nice, clean sand, and fish, and an ocean, just the way it was,” Markovich said. “People come from all over the place to chill on the beach.”