The High Line

Getting back to our trip to New York a few weeks ago.  One of the highlights for me was exploring The High Line in Chelsea.   [Not to be confused with the Highline in Montana, which is a group of depopulating communities along the state's only passenger rail line, way up near the Canadian border.  I think Havre is the largest of them.  And don't get all uppity and think it's pronounced like the town on the French side of the English Channel.  More like "You can have 'er." Yup]

Photo from dryrain

Anyway, this re-purposed urban greenspace in the middle of a huge city, The High Line. If you're not familiar, it was built in 1930 to get freight trains out of the street in New York's busy industrial district.  By 1980, freight trucking made the local railroad obsolete and it was decommissioned.  People rallied in the late 1990's to keep it from being demolished and then Mayor Bloomberg stepped up with City funding.  Ten years later, the first mile opened to the public.  As an urban planner, I am in awe of this project.  It's not easy to turn something around like this in the space of 10 years.  We were glad to enjoy the outcome of all that hard work. 

I don't know a whole lot about the landscape design process that went into the High Line, but in the twenty-five or so years that it was unused, it grew its own urban jungle between the tracks.  The architects did an amazing job of calling out its past life and how it evolved, while still bringing some order and beauty to it.  Here's the design slideshow: