NYC's High Line keeps getting cooler. Or hotter. From what began in the 1930s as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement, which lifted train/freight traffic 30 feet up and away from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district, has blossomed an elevated public park whose slickly modern yet suavely naturalistic landscape design is truly mesmerizing.
It's hard to believe, while meandering along its concrete pathways and through its native wildflower gardens and public art installations, that this little slice of utopia once served to allow trains to deliver milk, meat, produce and raw and manufactured goods directly from factories and warehouses to buildings without causing street-level traffic. In the 1950s, growth of interstate trucking led to a drop in rail traffic, both on the High Line and elsewhere. In 1980, three train cars stuffed to the brim with frozen turkeys pulled into the Meatpacking District and was the last train to run on the Highline. A very sad image, until one experiences what Friends of the High Line, the Design Trust for Public Space and the City of New York have delivered to Manhattan's West Side today. Have I mentioned sumac and magnolia trees? An amphitheater overlooking fashionista modeling shoots (sorry meat lovers) on the street below?
I follow the High Line on twitter and on several occasions I've been tempted to hop on a plane to participate in one of the unbelievably bright programs hosted there. It seems the place is expanding every day, not just in size (section 2- West 20th Street to West 30th Street- opened last week) but in scope. From the beginning, the Highline has hosted the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York's weekly Tuesday night stargazing session. Today the place seems to be in full swing. I'm actually exhausted for their staff just looking at their calendar of events, classes and programs, though I have a feeling there are plenty of New Yorkers volunteering their time in exchange for some time in the place to be.
When I saw pictures from the High Line's most recent public event, I felt the sensation that my heart and my stomach were suddenly one organ that might pierce through my skin and fly away into the sky. You know that feeling, right?
I'm easily amused but it takes something special, like a roof top/High Line collaborative dance performance, to knock me out. The iconic choreographer Tricia Brown first performed her seminal Roof Piece with her company in 1971, on SoHo rooftops. Last week on the 40th anniversary of its debut, the piece was restaged on rooftops near the southern end of the High Line. Ten dancers stationed on different rooftops mimic each other's movements in an improvised and mutable dance. The images describe and recount the event better than my words:
(above) Tricia Brown, Rooftops, SoHo 1971 (click to enlarge)
(below) Tricia Brown Co., Rooftops, High Line 2011 (click images to enlarge)
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