Highline
New York, NY
The stillness of the hulking High Line structure is quietly set in motion by projecting planes of glass and trellis plantings that reach forward and pass by. Once the route to warehouses on Manhattan's lower west side, the High Line's history tells of railroads that shifted from moving livestock to using refrigeration and later shifted from wood from boxcars with ice to modern steel containers.
Today, as we shift from the industrial into the electric age, these garden folly structures, make “shift gestures” in a quiet play of light and reflection providing a neutral backdrop for sculpture or framing views of the city beyond.
Overgrown prairie grass, from the American frontier, has found its way into city and recalls a time when trains rumbled by. We stroll down the meandering boardwalk and hear a little bounce and clatter of another day.
The elevated park is envisioned as an organizing spine for a variety of community and city-wide amenities. A two-block long enclosed galleria space for events of all sorts, proposed between 14thand 16th Streets, would offer dramatic river views laterally along its length. At 18th Street, where the Highline bends, a new building proposal features an elevated sloping lawn for evening film viewings an open space that would afford river views from the Highline.
Further north, at 28th Street, a community center is proposed for the residents of the neighboring public housing project. Its spiral form sponsors a curving staircase that leads to the upper level Highline park, as part of a broader strategy to welcomes visitors of all walks of life.
