High Line Park

The High Line is a 1.45-mile-long elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. The High Line’s design is a collaboration between James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf. The abandoned spur has been redesigned as a "living system" drawing from multiple disciplines which include landscape architecture, urban design, and ecology. Since opening in 2009, the High Line has become an icon of contemporary landscape architecture. The park is built on a disused, southern viaduct section of the New York Central Railroad line known as the West Side Line. Originating in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, the park runs from Gansevoort Street – three blocks below 14th Street, in the Meatpacking District – through Chelsea to the northern edge of the West Side Yard on 34th Street near the Javits Center. The West Side Line formerly extended south to a railroad terminal at Spring Street, just north of Canal Street, and north to 35th Street at the site of the Javits Center. Most of the viaduct's southern section was demolished in 1960, and the section north of 34th Street was demolished and reconfigured in 1981. Another small portion from Bank to Gansevoort Streets was demolished in 1991. The High Line was inspired by the 3-mile-long Promenade plantée, a similar project in Paris which was completed in 1993. Because of declining usage, the railway viaduct was effectively abandoned in 1980. Repurposing the railway into an urban park began in 2006, with the first phase opening in 2009 and the second phase opening in 2011. The third and final phase opened to the public on September 21, 2014. A short stub above Tenth Avenue and 30th Street was scheduled to open by 2018, then in April 2019, but as of April 2019, was expected to open in June 2019. The High Line's success has inspired cities throughout the United States to redevelop obsolete infrastructure as public space. The project has spurred real estate development in adjacent neighborhoods, increasing real-estate values and prices along the route in an example of the halo effect. As of September 2014, the park had nearly five million visitors annually.

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