took the photos below last Wednesday afternoon. It was a warm but comfortable day, sunny at times, but with ominous clouds covering large parts of the sky at others.
I found the High Line a disarmingly unpretentious borderland of the natural and the urban. Amazing views of solid and traditional looming old NYC architecture mixed with the startlingly new. Also, with multiple foundations and skeletons of buildings soon to block one's current view of the horizon. Skyscraper canyon streets leading to a glowing and muted blue Hudson River. Smells and tiny spectacles of swaying soothing plant life infiltrated by historical rusted railroad tracks. Provocative murals and sculptures. Add in what has been called the "real scenery" of NYC, its people -- both residents and tourists.
On this day the sky and clouds were putting on their own competing show, as well as a small group of Hare Krishnas. By the way, the Standard Hotel that the High Line travels under at one point (you can readily pick it out in several of the photos below -- two massive rectangular towers of glass windows) apparently has provided live porn shows from certain floor-to-ceiling uncurtained windows much to the alarm of passersby, especially ambushed parents with children all innocently appreciating the High Line's random and multiple views.
I also read about a resourceful and struggling neighborhood singer/actress who was annoyed by the lack of privacy from the too close by High Line but then organized an amateur vaudeville show, produced and performed by herself and friends and delivered regularly from her balcony!
The italicized commentary below about the NYC High Line is from wikipedia.
The High Line (also known as the High Line Park) is a 1-mile (1.6 km)[1] New York City linear park built on a 1.45-mile (2.33 km)[2] section of a disused New York Central Railroad spur, the West Side Line. The railroad line has been redesigned and planted as an aerial greenway and rails-to-trails park, which was inspired by the 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) Promenade plantée, a similar project in Paris completed in 1993.
snip
The recycling of the railway into an urban park has bought on the revitalization of Chelsea and spurred real estate development in the neighborhoods that lie along the line. Mayor Bloomberg noted that the High Line project has helped usher in something of a renaissance in the neighborhood: by 2009, more than 30 projects were planned or under construction nearby. However, the real estate boom has not been victimless; many well-established businesses in west Chelsea have closed due to loss of neighborhood customer base or rent increases.
Crime has been, unusually, extraordinarily low in the park. Shortly after the second section opened in 2011, The New York Times reported that there have been no reports of major crimes such as assaults or robberies since its first phase opened two years prior. Parks Enforcement Patrols have written summonses for various infractions of park rules, such as walking dogs or bicycles on the walkway, but at a rate lower than in Central Park, despite the Central Park's location in tony Upper Manhattan. Park advocates attributed that to the high visibility of the High Line from the surrounding buildings, a feature of traditional urbanism espoused by author Jane Jacobs nearly 50 years earlier. "Empty parks are dangerous", David told the newspaper. "Busy parks are much less so. You’re virtually never alone on the High Line."
Residents who have bought apartments next to the High Line Park have adapted to its presence in varying ways. For the most part though, their responses are positive.
snip
The park's attractions include naturalized plantings that are inspired by the self-seeded landscape that grew on the disused tracks and new, often unexpected views of the city and the Hudson River. Pebble-dash concrete walkways unify the trail, which swells and constricts, swinging from side to side, and divides into concrete tines that meld the hardscape with the planting embedded in railroad gravel mulch. Stretches of track and ties recall the High Line's former use. Portions of track are adaptively re-used for rolling lounges positioned for river views.
Most of the planting, which includes 210 species, is of rugged meadow plants, including clump-forming grasses, liatris and coneflowers, with scattered stands of sumac and smokebush, but not limited to American natives....
snip
The park is open daily from 7am to 10pm.
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Libby, great looking photo essay!
I've got to get down there to see the more recently opened stretches since I've only walked the original part. There have been a few other photo essays on the high line on OS a few years back around the time it opened. I recall posting something, Lea Lane had a post, and a few others... It still amazes me that it happened at all as a park since the overhead sections easily could've been razed and more buildings erected along the path.
I've got to get down there to see the more recently opened stretches since I've only walked the original part. There have been a few other photo essays on the high line on OS a few years back around the time it opened. I recall posting something, Lea Lane had a post, and a few others... It still amazes me that it happened at all as a park since the overhead sections easily could've been razed and more buildings erected along the path.
oh wow. spectacular photos, fascinating narrative. i had heard of this and seen maybe one picture. but this is just so freaking fabulous. love that crime is low and how creative people have been in adapting to this new addition. this makes me so freaking homesick for the East Coast. seriously nostalgic. i don't know if Boston has this cutting edge innovation going on -- been away for a long long time -- but i would wager that it has. and it's so close to NYC. Portland, OR thinks it's a city. but it's a Big Town. And the architecture is truly pitiful.
sorry. i didn't mean to go to the cranky place. just so moved and delighted by all of this. and envious as shit.
sorry. i didn't mean to go to the cranky place. just so moved and delighted by all of this. and envious as shit.
I used to live on the corner apartment house on 22nd and 10th more than thirty years ago (around the corner from the Empire Diner (before moving to the East Side) for two years.
I don't see ANYTHING recognizable, here.
I still miss the City.
-R-
I don't see ANYTHING recognizable, here.
I still miss the City.
-R-
You are the best at this. Your photos capture not just the look, but the real character of NYC. If I still worked in NYC, I would have walked it many times. Sadly, I haven't done so yet. R
Great pics and a wonderful thing to do with an unused piece of infrastructure. R&R ;-)
Great photos! Thanks for sharing.
Well, since another summer has come and gone without my managing my life for another NY trip, your pics at least allow me to enjoy the city vicariously. You've a real talent for capturing the look and the feel of a place libby. Thanks for the post.
Great photos... I walked part of it 2 years ago on a sunny December afternoon. Your photos are a lot more complete than my memory though.
-R-
aw libby these are great! it could be that NYC is starting to acheive it's potential in greatness and beauty. at least civilized beauty. I love the overpass and how the west side has changed so much.
but I miss the old city, the savage city and the raunchiness of it too. I miss the extreme west side and extreme lower east side and extreme 42nd street...but it's all prime real estate now and nothing will be extreme again. only extremely expensive. (sniffle)
GREAT SHOTS and descriptions!! This should be a goddamned EP! and fuck!
they're changing my city so fast, it makes me want to cry. I will never go back. I never should have left but i had to, so I did. but it's like those silcone sheets that close up when you cut them, my place in it closed shut.
but I miss the old city, the savage city and the raunchiness of it too. I miss the extreme west side and extreme lower east side and extreme 42nd street...but it's all prime real estate now and nothing will be extreme again. only extremely expensive. (sniffle)
GREAT SHOTS and descriptions!! This should be a goddamned EP! and fuck!
they're changing my city so fast, it makes me want to cry. I will never go back. I never should have left but i had to, so I did. but it's like those silcone sheets that close up when you cut them, my place in it closed shut.
Libby, as coincidence would have it, I'll be in New York Sunday for the People's Climate March, which ends near the Javits center. My son and I plan to proceed a little southward from there to walk along the High Line (which I visited a few months ago for the first time) and see some of the new sculpture exhibits I've read about. Looking forward! It's one of my favorite things about New York.Thanks for the pictorial appetizers!
Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge was always one of my favorite things to do. This looks like it could be even better..
Believe it or not I've been on the High Line. My son-in-law shares my interest in permaculture and food forests and took me there in 2011.
New York, New York - it's a wonderful town! Nice pics, Libby. R
Wow! You provided the best tour of NYC I've ever had.
Lezlie
Lezlie
d- thanks for comment. from the amount of construction going around the High Line it is obvious what a victory it was protecting this elevated park from the real estate barons. I didn't through my pictures reveal enough of the sea of building foundations begun at many spots near the High Line which means the view will become more and more compromised and changed as in horizon blocked, but at least the High Line has its boundaries.
Theodora, thanks for your enthusiastic comment! I love your distinction between a Big Town and a Big City. The High Line presents so many dimensions of urban NYC from a vantage protective and celebratory of nature!
Major gentrification, Mark. NYC is being staked out and occupied by the super rich. I don't often get into this neighborhood but I always enough it though it continues to transition. Still a flavor of NYC slice of life and NYC's diversified identity but the [Rich] American[s] Interests keeps on keeping.
Gerald, I wish this park were handier to where I live and work but it is so worth coming back to. And with the NYC subway system, it ain't all that far away as is all of NYC. Just need to make the time! It is worth it. I wish the sunlight had stayed strong re the pictures but you make do. When I arrived with my friends we picnicked on a grassy knoll and then when we set out to walk it and me to take pictures the dark clouds had rolled in. Still grateful my camera could zoom especially toward the Hudson.
jmac, yes, thanks, the story is remarkable that this elevated park was fought for and protected. Remarkable that it wends its way so closely to some of the old and new buildings that surround it. Some of the artwork I took pictures of is not NYC Parks and Recreation "official", like the flying nude. It is displayed outside the park's jurisdiction. The kissing sailor was also on the side of a building. The billboards from some of the buildings message to one commercially or deliberately celebrate the High Line as well as hawking nearby restaurants nearby. Was not too intrusive and the name of the coffee shop below named Underline made me smile.
tink!!!! :-)
abra, so nice to see you. even living in NYC I am ashamed of so much I am missing myself too often. I hope to get out and about more with camera! a nice vacation for me from the distressing political!
joe, i look forward to checking out the mood down there in the differing seasons!
token, thanks for stopping by! Nice to see you back so often now.
FM-- great comment. so resonates especially the "extremely expensive" part. public access is more and more reduced in NYC but thank God there is the access that there is here and I want to take more advantage of it!!! I only moved to NYC for a year or two after leaving a job to "find myself" here. I seem to be still looking. Hah.
Daniel, how great of you to participate in the climate march. I hope to be there as well before my night work shift.
jl, so great to see you. Brooklyn Bridge awes for sure. This was an eye-filling experience also. NYC, where the viewing shocks and awes. It is a doable stretch to walk along as well. Not a serious walk marathon. And the idea that it will continue to lengthen and more museums are setting up outlets near the High Line because of the outer and inner tourist trade also inspires. I asked one of my friends if wifi was accessible there and he said maybe deliberately not! come down there to read a book or meditate on nature or whatever. leave the wifi to Starbucks?
Stuart, you rock. You certainly have gotten around!!
Marilyn!!! thanks for stopping by! I always think of you as exercising such a strong NYer spirit and sensibility and wit!!!
Lezlie, thank you SO much for stopping by and for such lovely validation of this modest picture array. As I told Gerald, I was hoping for more sunlight, but one must expect the unexpected especially in NYC and make the most of it. :-) I am hoping to get out and about more in the City armed with camera and to share more often its particular visual glories and opportunities.
best, libby
Theodora, thanks for your enthusiastic comment! I love your distinction between a Big Town and a Big City. The High Line presents so many dimensions of urban NYC from a vantage protective and celebratory of nature!
Major gentrification, Mark. NYC is being staked out and occupied by the super rich. I don't often get into this neighborhood but I always enough it though it continues to transition. Still a flavor of NYC slice of life and NYC's diversified identity but the [Rich] American[s] Interests keeps on keeping.
Gerald, I wish this park were handier to where I live and work but it is so worth coming back to. And with the NYC subway system, it ain't all that far away as is all of NYC. Just need to make the time! It is worth it. I wish the sunlight had stayed strong re the pictures but you make do. When I arrived with my friends we picnicked on a grassy knoll and then when we set out to walk it and me to take pictures the dark clouds had rolled in. Still grateful my camera could zoom especially toward the Hudson.
jmac, yes, thanks, the story is remarkable that this elevated park was fought for and protected. Remarkable that it wends its way so closely to some of the old and new buildings that surround it. Some of the artwork I took pictures of is not NYC Parks and Recreation "official", like the flying nude. It is displayed outside the park's jurisdiction. The kissing sailor was also on the side of a building. The billboards from some of the buildings message to one commercially or deliberately celebrate the High Line as well as hawking nearby restaurants nearby. Was not too intrusive and the name of the coffee shop below named Underline made me smile.
tink!!!! :-)
abra, so nice to see you. even living in NYC I am ashamed of so much I am missing myself too often. I hope to get out and about more with camera! a nice vacation for me from the distressing political!
joe, i look forward to checking out the mood down there in the differing seasons!
token, thanks for stopping by! Nice to see you back so often now.
FM-- great comment. so resonates especially the "extremely expensive" part. public access is more and more reduced in NYC but thank God there is the access that there is here and I want to take more advantage of it!!! I only moved to NYC for a year or two after leaving a job to "find myself" here. I seem to be still looking. Hah.
Daniel, how great of you to participate in the climate march. I hope to be there as well before my night work shift.
jl, so great to see you. Brooklyn Bridge awes for sure. This was an eye-filling experience also. NYC, where the viewing shocks and awes. It is a doable stretch to walk along as well. Not a serious walk marathon. And the idea that it will continue to lengthen and more museums are setting up outlets near the High Line because of the outer and inner tourist trade also inspires. I asked one of my friends if wifi was accessible there and he said maybe deliberately not! come down there to read a book or meditate on nature or whatever. leave the wifi to Starbucks?
Stuart, you rock. You certainly have gotten around!!
Marilyn!!! thanks for stopping by! I always think of you as exercising such a strong NYer spirit and sensibility and wit!!!
Lezlie, thank you SO much for stopping by and for such lovely validation of this modest picture array. As I told Gerald, I was hoping for more sunlight, but one must expect the unexpected especially in NYC and make the most of it. :-) I am hoping to get out and about more in the City armed with camera and to share more often its particular visual glories and opportunities.
best, libby
fyi, the little boy on the High Line path in one of the pictures above is cooling his feet though it is hard to discern. that particular portion of sidewalk has a subtle little side fountain operating so you can walk along in bare feet and enjoy a continuously wet and cooling portion of sidewalk. the other half of the sidewalk path remains unwet.
Beautiful images
I love these walks with you
Thank you
~R~
I love these walks with you
Thank you
~R~
MCS, thanks for the visit! :-) best, libby
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