By Aaron Short 10/10/12 11:44am

Gettin' High Line

6 Photos

The Hinterlands of the High Line

The High Line Will Never Be the Same: Strolling the Wilds of Chelsea One Last Time

It is an unusual and yet utterly New York paradox that to glimpse the natural world in Manhattan you must visit an unnatural place.

That is part of the appeal of the weirdly beautiful High Line. Not the manicured park, with its concrete boardwalk and hordes of tourists but what came before on the 1.5-miles railroad trestle, the despoiled beauty of Mother Nature set loose in the wilds of Chelsea, undisturbed for decades but for the occasional trespasser.

More than 10 million visitors have taken in the breathtaking views of the city’s skyline and the Hudson River and traipsed through its minimalist landscape of historic tracks and native grasses since the High Line park opened in 2009. It has encouraged development in Chelsea and Meatpacking, inspired artists and filmmakers, and managed to polarize the surrounding neighborhood before it has even been fully restored.

Yet the thin strip of pre-post-industrial wildlands that made that all possible is about to disappear. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/20/12 2:32pm

Gettin' High Line

Change on the tracks. (Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Bloomberg to High Line Haters: Cities Change, Get Over It

The High Line. Rejuvenator of neighborhoods, destroyer of neighborhoods.

Those are basically the two media narratives surrounding the elevated park on Manhattan’s West Side, which just held the groundbreaking for its third and final phase today. Most of the attention in the past has been on how great the design-y new park is, but as locals learn to live with the millions of visitors who flock to the park each year, some of them have started to complain, most notably in the Op-Ed pages of the Times, that the High Line has actually ruined, or at least Disneyfied, the neighborhoods surrounding it.

Asked about these changes today, Mayor Bloomberg did not necessarily disagree with the situation, just the sentiment. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/05/12 12:52pm

Scary Stories

Do the setback! (Studios Architecture)

Good News and Bad News for the High Line as Chelsea Market Expansion Approved by City Planning

Much of the debate around the expansion of the Chelsea Market has centered around not the former Nasbisco factory turned popular shopping center (and subsequent tourist attraction), but the old railroad trestle next to it.

Part of the justification for expanding the market by 25 percent was that, in addition to providing construction jobs and new office space for the city’s booming tech sector, the developer of the project, Jamestown Properties, would pay about $19 million to the High Line, to help fund ongoing maintenance. But there was also great community outcry over the fact that much of the new addition would be built on the 10th Avenue side of Chelsea Market, directly overhanging the High Line.

Earlier today, the City Planning Commission unanimously approved the project’s expansion, and addressed a few of these concerns. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/19/12 10:54am

Gettin' High Line

Who needs a proper playground when you have this? (FotHL)

The High Line Has a Way With Money, Scores $5 M. While Neighbors Go Wanting

One of the chief complaints against the Chelsea Market expansion explored in this week’s Observer is that the project held no benefits for the community, only the High Line, which was receiving $19 million toward a long-term improvement fund.

It is only the latest sign of the park’s pull in the neighborhood and in the city, but here is another: DNAinfo dug into the city budget and found that the High Line is getting $5 million toward the creation of its third section. That is many times what neighboring amenities are getting, such as Hudson River Park, which is in much more dire shape. Read More

By Stephen Duffy 12/07/11 4:18pm

Gettin' High Line

Plans go here. (Friends of the High Line)

Topsoil, Trains and Toilets On High Line Wish List

“I’d love to see a locomotive up there,” Chelsea resident Grant Anderson said before a packed auditorium at P.S. 11 last night. His proposal for the third and final section of the High Line, encircling the Hudson Yards, was met with a burst of spontaneous applause.

Not only did it have the proper fanciful feel of the park that seems to float, as if by magic, above the hubbub of Manhattan, but it also had its antecedents.  “One of the great things about the High Line is you still get a sense of history,” he continued. “Just imagine the feeling—looking up and seeing a train and boxcar down the street.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 12/05/11 6:02pm

Mr. Ross' Neighborhood

High_Line_Phase_3

Your Line? My Line? Help Design the High Line

That was the easy part.

Now that the High Line has become a smash success, Friends of the High Line has to decided what to do with the third and final section of the elevated park, which surround Hudson Yards. After fighting for decades to preserve and then transform the old rail line, it was not clear this section of track would be preserved or replaced by some alternative park, as the city worked to redevelop the site.

The Related Company and the Bloomberg administration both agreed it should be, and now that their work is underway in creating a new Baltimore on the West Side of Manhattan, so too is the Friends’ job of figuring out what should surround it.

That all starts tomorrow night. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/01/11 9:47am

Gettin' High Line

It's a good thing no one drives in Manhattan, because pretty soon there will be nowhere for repairs. (PropertyShark)

High Line Wrecks 90-Year-Old Auto Body Shop

It’s a good thing no one drives in Manhattan, because pretty soon there will be nowhere for repairs. (PropertyShark)

The High Line has been held up as a dynamo of economic development, generating billions of dollars in new condos, boutiques and restaurant, even attracting a museum or two to a lot where cattle carcasses once hung. It’s such a big deal, there’s no room for the little guys. Read More

By Chloe Malle 9/22/10 3:00am

Shindigger

Pace’s Half Century, Under the Highline

Last Thursday evening, after a flash flood of biblical proportions, Arne Glimcher greeted arriving guests like Noah shepherding animals onto his ark. But unlike the guests on Noah’s Ark, the guests at Mr. Glimcher’s 50th anniversary party did not differ in species and were all of the art-world genus, differentiated only by breed–artist, collector, curator, Read More

By Reid Pillifant 10/19/09 10:56pm

High Line Keeps Going

The full, 1.5-mile vision for the High Line Park inched one step closer to completion today, with the first concrete indication that the city will acquire the northern third of the elevated rail line.

At a City Planning Commission meeting this afternoon, chair Amanda Burden said the commission is preparing the paperwork for the Read More