Friends of The High Line
The High Line is an elevated, disused subway line that is being converted in to a public space. People are saying this is the next Central Park. This is going to be a seven acre public park, raised above the noise of the city. This is going to be awesome.
They keep talking about turning the West Side Highway into a tunnel so all that waterfront space could be used for parks. That's never going to happen, but this is.
The 22-block-long High Line High tells us lots about an era when ships, trains, factories, and warehouses made the West Side of Manhattan America's premier working waterfront—and how in recent years New York City has come to appreciate the value and potential of its unused industrial infrastructure.
When the High Line is converted to public open space, you will be able to rise up from the streets and step into a place apart, tranquil and green. You will see the Hudson River, the Manhattan skyline, and secret gardens inside city blocks as you've never seen them before. You will move between Penn Station and the Hudson River Park, from the convention center to the Gansevoort Market Historic District, without meeting a car or truck. The High Line will be a promenade—a linear public place where you will see and be seen. You will sense New York's industrial past in the rivets and girders. You will perceive the future unrolling before you in an artfully designed environment of unprecedented innovation. It will be yours—public in the truest sense of the word. Public dollars helped build it in the 1930s. Public legislation empowers us to make it a place anyone can visit. It will be proof New York City no longer casts aside its priceless transportation infrastructure but instead creates bold new uses for these monuments to human power and ambition.
page first created on Saturday, November 13, 2004
© Mark Wieczorek