Visiting New York's High Line

NEW YORK CITY - Residents and tourists alike have always loved high places in the Big Apple.

Eight years after the city's highest points tumbled to the ground in a terrorist attack, more than a half million tourists a year still fork out between $14 to $65 a piece to see the panoramic view from the city's most iconic landmark: the 102-story Empire State Building.

They also crowd the three-level observation deck of the Top of the Rock at the 70-story Rockefeller Center in Midtown. They wait for hours to visit the 10th-floor pedestal observation level at the Statue of Liberty, and tickets have already sold out for a chance to get a higher view from the crown when it reopens for the first time since 9/11 on the Fourth of July.

New York's newest vantage point, however, opened to the public this month on the Lower West Side: the first phase of The High Line on the lower West Side. While it's only 30 feet off the ground, it's arguably the nation's most ambitious rails-to-trails project.

Originally constructed in the early 1930s to eliminate dangerous freight train traffic from New York's bustling streets, the High Line was an elevated rail line that ran north for 13 miles from Spring Street on Manhattan's lower West Side. To avoid problems associated with elevated railways, the line was routed through the center of blocks rather than over the street, allowing freight deliveries to be unloaded right inside buildings.

Hailed as an important civic achievement, the High Line served as an important freight artery for four decades, but the emergence of trucking eroded its importance. The section of the line south of Gansevoort Street to Spring Street was demolished in the 1960s, and the last train ran on the line in 1980.

Almost immediately, petitions were introduced to pull down the rest of the High Line and develop the property beneath it, but local resident Peter Obletz countered with proposals to reinvigorate rail traffic.

Civic groups responded and a resulting legal standoff persisted until 1999, when two community residents, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, formed a nonprofit organization called Friends of the High Line to preserve the remaining structure and transform it into a mile-long linear park open to the public.

The public advocacy campaign that resulted is a tribute to progressive optimism and involved an enormous amount of heavy organizational lifting. The group began lobbying public and private entities for years and supported a professional assessment of the financial realities and potential benefits of creating a 1.5 mile-long elevated park. In addition to the general public, green-conscious celebrities including Edward Norton, Steve Carrell, Kevin Bacon, Glenn Close, Harvey Keitel and Diane von Furstenberg rallied to the project.

In November 2005, the city assumed ownership of the line south of 30th Street and the design phase of the project began. An international competition produced an abundance of ideas and in April 2005 construction began. The project was divided into two sections, from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, and 20th Street to 30th Street.

The old rails and ballast were removed, steel super structures were sand-blasted to remove lead paint, crumbling concrete was repaired and drainage systems were installed. Then pathways and landscaping were added to the structure and stairways and elevators were erected to provide public access.

The opening of the first section on June 8 provides a tantalizing preview of what will be, an interesting juxtaposition between natural and urban settings. The route cuts through various buildings, offering new perspectives of city streets and new vistas of the Hudson River. The concrete pathway meanders between high grasses, flowerbeds and small copses of trees, creating the sense of a countryside meander, albeit 30 feet above New York's busy streets.

Phase two of the High Line, from 20th to 30th Streets, is scheduled for completion next year and will include innovative features such as a grasslands area a three-block "woodland fly-over."

The fate of the final and largest section of the High Line, which runs around the West Side rail yards between 30th and 34th Streets, remains to be determined. The right of way there is still owned by the CSX Railroad Corp. and part of the Hudson Yards, a controversial development project that may take years to be resolved. In addition to working to raise the funds necessary to complete the second section, Friends of the High Line are advocating to have this section included in the park.

While it's unlikely that the High Line will become a tourism magnet on the scale of the Empire State Building it is an excellent addition to the neighborhoods through which it passes, a green stem for the Big Apple and an inspiration for eco-activists.

The High Line is open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and admission is free at the five access points between Gansevoort and 20th streets. By all means, visit www.thehighline.org and plan to take a stroll the next time you're in Manhattan with a few hours to enjoy this most innovative of public parks.