Time on the High Line
How quickly a new view can change how we see. Take, for example, the slower-than-average pedestrian. At street level they’re a human obstacle. On the High Line, Manhattan’s new elevated park on the West Side, there’s no rushing. Move as slow as you like. Below, destinations are hurriedly sought. Above, on the park, dreamy and imaginative eyes wander languidly.
Reclaimed from its former life as an elevated freight railroad, the park features remnants of old tracks that can be seen amidst modular concrete sidewalks and sleek “peel-up” benches that pepper the pathway. Designed by landscape architects James Corner Field Operations with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, it’s a public space that gives nod to history while simultaneously contributing modern architectural aesthetics. It’s historical…it’s modern. It’s both.
The High Line has two prominent pasts and many yet imagined futures. The first of its pasts was its initial purpose—a railroad. Opened in 1934, it elevated freight trains off the street to circumvent injury. For roughly 75 years the conflict between pedestrian and rail traffic along 10th Avenue had been so harrowing it produced the apt name “Death Avenue.” The problem finally addressed, workers’ lives were spared and industrial factories adjacent to the line could retain their labor force.
Not glamorous. These trains were hauling beef carcasses. The preserved “industrial charm” of the High Line is acutely symbolic of those laborers’ hard lives—and lives lost. Within that context the High Line’s homage to history is limited. The riveted steel structure and old tracks function as adornments, decorative elements that add visual interest and a smidgen of story to an otherwise elegant design. Art deco railings of the original structure have been restored but are paradoxically paired with glass walls and stainless steel handrails with neatly embossed glow-in-the-dark wayfinding. Properly camouflaged LED lighting casts a moody glow in the evenings. At the 15th Street sundeck visitors will eventually (when it’s working) dip manicured toes into a high-tech water feature. Art, food, and fashion businesses that now populate the transformed neighborhoods around the structure have only to worry about quality of life. Early morning employees heading into work along 10th Avenue fear only the sludge of taxi cabs and slower-than-average pedestrians on neatly kept sidewalks.
When the first portion of the High Line was demolished in 1960, just across town on Park Avenue another gritty rail history was being paved over, and modern curtain walled structures were all the rage. The most beautiful was (and still is) the Seagram Building by Mies van der Rohe. But beauty in the 60’s was skin and bones, clean and unornamented. Since then we’ve seen Postmodern and preservationist movements, where elements of the past are valued and kept. In today’s urban environment the notion that the High Line has preserved industrial charm isn’t radical, it just makes plain sense.
The design competitions are over, the long-waged preservation battle has been won, and the High Line is a smashing success. Industrial is synonymous with charm, and literal remnants of the High Line’s first busy past life are rightfully featured. The design firms in this case restored history on the High Line.
They didn’t have to. New York is fearless in the face of change. This is the city that tore down the elegant Pennsylvania Station for the more revenue-friendly Madison Square Garden. Of course, the city yelped as the architectural treasure was demolished, immediately pained by the loss. But that was the loss of known beauty, and still New York consented. The High Line was never traditionally beautiful. It was functional. A less sentimental design team could have easily edited the tracks—the first thing uprooted and discarded in an excessively snazzy overhaul. There would be no collective yelp. In this other trackless scenario we would be dazzled new tricks of form and material, and reviews would declare it a success or a debacle. Anything in New York can be repurposed without apology.
More than being obvious, or the right answer (subjective), the historical leftovers are practical. Demolition is a significant expense, perhaps the reason why only a portion was removed back in 1960 when old didn’t jive with new. It’s cheaper to do nothing than to do something. And if you’re going to do something, it’s cheaper to utilize the existing structure than to tear it down and build a new one.
The important lesson here is that a successful park can happen anywhere and look like anything. New York’s High Line may have set an example, but it doesn’t have to be the benchmark. Imitation can threaten innovation. When other cities look to our model as a measure of success they needn’t fear a lack of history, or railroad tracks, or forgotten architectural gem. If the public needs a park, build them a park.
We’ve come a long way from the traditional model. The High Line isn’t the idyllic countryside format of Olmstead and Vaux’s Central Park, the classic all-purpose hideaway. It’s perched right in the center of bustling districts. Rather than removing us from the City panorama it is flaunted—inescapable from any angle. It also has a limited function. Most traditional parks encourage vigorous use. In Central Park you can play football, picnic on the lawn, bike and run. The High Line wasn’t built for activity—there’s just not enough room. You can have lunch, but don’t step on the grass. You can probably run, but you might scare other visitors. It’s best to just walk the High Line. From point A to point B, stick to the path and take in what its showing you.
Although it’s best to avoid drinking in the pleasures of the park, for now at least, on beautiful weekends. Your eyes may not be so dreamy and languid while you’re jostling with other patrons for personal space. It’s a narrow walkway—compromised further by its meandering quality and the greenery that encroaches the path on either side. On a busy day even the benches transform. Once sleek and clever, seemingly pulling up from the walkway to offer a pleasant rest for the weary, in a jam (literally), the benches are akin to a barcalounger on a subway. There’s not enough room.
Most of the views from the High Line are upward and outward, to the impressive New York skyline. The downward pitched amphitheater at 17th Street, though, is always popular. Bleacher-like seating with a picture window view of gray 10th Avenue pavement, you might wonder: why? It likely has less to do with scenery than novelty.
Between the High Line’s original function as a freight railroad and it’s future lies its second past. It lived without purpose for 25 years, forgotten. During that time, of course, foliage grew. A wild, natural, un-New York-like growth of vegetation that happened right beneath—or should I say above—our noses.
This second past is truly the inspiration for what it has become, even more than historical rails and industrial charm. Neglect was the High Line’s real vehicle for beauty. Park designers and planting consultant Piet Oudolf were inspired by the wildness and freedom that marked the middle years of its existence. Today on the High Line you can find hundreds of perennials, grasses, shrubs, and trees carefully selected and explicitly positioned based on textural and color variation. The result is a contradiction, in context more sleek than self-seeded. Even so, on this hulking industrial structure, where flowers seemingly shouldn’t bloom, the vegetation feels just right.
Today, an examination of the architecture surrounding the High Line presents an interesting duality. Low, old brick buildings sprinkled with new, contemporary architecture. The modern Standard Hotel straddles the High Line at Washington street. Park visitors walk right under it and can admire the structure’s ability to blend in while imposing over the walkway. To the west, Frank Gehry’s glass IAC Building looks like a monstrous hospital right out of a science fiction series. Other new wave buildings vie for the label of “coolest.” Residents moving into the Metal Shutter Houses will be able to raise and lower the outer walls and feel the Hudson breeze from their living rooms. Nearly all the new buildings on the scene are experimenting with unconventional new looks. Black and white, windows and steel, garage doors as walls. The future of the High Line’s panorama promises visual interest, curiosity, and even impracticality. The neighborhood is changing quickly, and the views of tomorrow will offer much to talk about.
As time passes the greenery will fill in, become lusher and wilder. The neighborhood will continue its march through time, the future already showing its hand. A microcosm of the city of New York, the High Line is a mix of old and new. Brand new and modern lives next door to nostalgia and character. The success of the High Line is that from its influential perch above the street, it remembers where it came from. A walk along it can evoke the sentiments of the past, while a sleek new future is constructed before your eyes.
artwork: Curtis Parker
