A disused railway line in the Big Apple has been transformed into parkland – where you can stroll high above the city streets.
If ever a place was obsessed with reinvention, it’s New York City. A decade ago, Manhattan residents wouldn’t have dreamed that the blighted High Line, a disused railway track, was destined for a glamorous future as the city’s most exhilarating public space.
The High Line, now a 2.33km railway line that spans 22 city blocks, connecting three neighbourhoods (the Meatpacking District, Hell’s Kitchen and West Chelsea), was built in the 1930s to service the warehouses along the Hudson River. The tracks ran down the middle of 10th Avenue, but the route proved so dangerous – it was nicknamed Death Avenue – that the line was raised so trains could cut through buildings and easily offload freight.
They needn’t have bothered; the High Line wasn’t productive for long and was abandoned by 1980. It would have ended up in a scrap-metal graveyard, if not for a group of locals who saw the decrepit structure as a potential public park in a part of the city that was critically lacking in green space.
The community-based group Friends of the High Line was founded by residents Robert Hammond and Joshua David. Together with a group of celebrities, designers and downtown tastemakers, they paved the way for the High Line’s conversion into a spectacular public park. In 2004, the New York City government committed $US45m ($57.4m) to the proposal, taking its total investment to $US112.2m ($143.2m).
The project was initially opposed by many developers, particularly in the revamped Meatpacking District. They have since realised that parks improve property values, and the High Line’s comeback has proved very good for business. Residential real-estate prices have risen and numerous development projects are in the works, including architectural showpieces designed by the likes of Jean Nouvel and Robert AM Stern.
Together with Frank Gehry these architects are redrawing Manhattan’s western profile. The High Line, flanked by hotels, galleries, restaurants and bars, will become a key part of downtown New York’s social fabric. The winning design for the site, by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio and Renfro, was chosen in 2004 and is bound to set a new standard for adaptive reuse. The first section of the line, from Gansevoort Street to West 30th Street, has been unveiled. The result is a 2.7ha grand aerial promenade filled with lawns, trees and flowerbeds.
To maintain a conduit to the past, many of the original elements, such as sections of railway track, will remain. Visitors will ascend by stairs or escalators (the first section will have four entry points) and follow a concrete path, which will form the backbone of the High Line experience. Eventually, the southern end of the High Line will be bookended by the new annex of the Whitney Museum, a fitting addition to an already booming arts precinct. The six-storey, 17,000sq m building will be designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano and is expected to open in 2012.
With grass three storeys above the ground, the High Line platform offers a new perspective of New York: not just expansive views across the Hudson River, but glimpses into secret corners of the city not readily noticed at street level.
The High Line, like a magic carpet, feels anchored to the past, despite its undeniably futuristic characteristics. To quote the American writer O Henry: “It couldn’t have happened anywhere but in little old New York.”
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Source: Qantas The Australian Way August 2009