railroad tracks. By 1851, street level railroad traffic
had caused so many accidents that the West
Side’s freight corridor became known as “Death
Avenue”. The New York Central Railroad hired men
on horseback, called the West Side Cowboys, to
ride in front of trains, waving pedestrians out of
the way.
The high line was built by the New York Railroad
between 1929 and 1934 to eliminate street level
train crossing from 34 th Street to Spring Street and
to improve both efficiency and public safety.
For years the High Line served as an integral
part of Manhattan’s industrial landscape – the
“life line of New York”. The elevated railway allowed
for efficient deliveries of meat, produce, and diary
products into the warehouses and factories up
and down the West side. However, with the decline
of manufacturing in Manhattan, train traffic in the
1950s and 1960s began to decrease on the High
Line, and the elevated railway fell into a state of
disuse.
In 1999, CSX Transportation, the national rail
freight carrier and then-owner of the High Line,
commissioned a planning study to assess the
reuse of the 1.45 mile elevated railway. The study was presented at a Community Board meeting
in West Chelsea, inspiring two neighbourhood
residents, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, to
create Friends of the High Line, an organisation
to advocate for the adaptive use of the High Line.
In 2005, following years of collaboration with
the City of New York and ‘Friends of the High Line’,
CSX donated the High Line (or High Line Park)
to the City of New York, paving the way for it to
be opened to the public. Led by the landscape
architecture firm James Corner Field Operations,
who drew inspiration from multiple disciplines
including landscape architecture, urban design,
and ecology, the abandoned spur was redesigned
as a "living system". Since its opening in 2009, the
High Line has become an icon of contemporary
landscape architecture.
The park's attractions include naturalised
plants, inspired by plants which grew on the
disused tracks, and views of the city and
the Hudson River. The pebble-dash concrete
walkways swell and constrict, swing from side to
side, and divide into concrete spines which meld
into the hardscape with plants embedded in
railroad-gravel mulch. "By opening the paving, we
Mid-section of the High Line with vertical access
from the street. The space below the High
Line is being used as a car park and for other
commercial uses. View of the old High Line showing the moving
train as displayed on the High Line walkway
information board.
The High Line winding its way through the city’s
centre amidst apartment buildings. Northern end of the High Line revealing traces of
rail lines.
53