Downtown New York
Photograph by Tony Baragona



                              

                    THE THRILL OF THE HIGH LINE

IN the city that never sleeps, there are plenty of material dreams within grasp of the person of means: luxury real estate, expensive art, fashionable clothing, glittering baubles. But the gifts that New York bestows on its denizens and visitors alike often embody dreams of a more ethereal kind and best of all, can be had for a song or practically nothing at all. 

SUCH is the case of The High Line, the city's latest sensation. Soaring 20 feet above 10th Avenue, on the lower West Side, this elevated park built on a former industrial railway track has captured the public imagination by serving up 360 degree views of the moveable feast that is New York.

THE High Line takes in the urban landscape of lower Manhattan and turns it into high teater. In the short distance that it covers, barely half a mile, it wends its way alongside and through buildings thrusting pedestrians into the heart of a movie set unlike any other. All around is the city in all its play of scale, proportions and architectural styles; above, the wide open sky. The theatricality of this unusual park is reinforced at one point by a neat conceit. As the High Line rounds a bend on a ramp above 10th Avenue, it bifurcates with one side dipping to create an open air amphitheatre with wide wood benches that invite pedestrians to stop and enjoy the running show, there for all to see through a panoramic glass window: the ebb and flow of vehicular traffic on 10th Avenue. Watching traffic was never this much fun; this is one hell of a hit.

FOR all its operatic grandness, the High Line can be oddly intimate as when it crosses the base of  The Standard hotel or sidles up next to a building at such close range that one can peek inside the interior of glamorous offices. All along its length, the walkway is enlived by subtle touches like the way the ribbon-like strips of cement that make up the pavement flare up from the ground to create cantilevered benches of wood and metal. Throughout the course, sections of the old tracks create a running motif linking past and present while interwoven pockets of flora with grasses, plants and small trees, await the first spell of warm weather to burst into life. Here and there, blue and yellow crocuses peek out of the ground.

COME summer, an additional half mile extension will carry the High Line further north to West 30th. The dream of two enterprising young men, realized at a cost of $150 million in private and public funds, has now become New York's grand communal dream.

The first section of the High Line runs from Gansevoort Street, in the Meatpacking District, to West 20th Street, in Chelsea, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.

TOP  NEW YORK ATTRACTIONS THAT WON'T COST YOU A PENNY:

The Staten Island Ferry (Take a 20-minute sea voyage to Staten Island)

The Greenmarket at Union Square (Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Saturday)

Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library in midtown Manhattan, between 40th & 42nd Streets & Fifth & Sixth Avenues (sit beneath the splendid plane trees and watch the world go by)

Museum of Modern Art (free on Fridays after 5 p.m, courtesy of Target)

Barnes & Noble at Union Square (books galore, clean bathrooms, and moderately priced food )

Photograph by Denise Blasor

 Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance.  Look at the flowers - for no reason.  It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.  ~Osho

Copyright 2011 Lorraine Blasor All Rights Reserved