On the High Line at Last
Like many New Yorkers, I’ve been reading about the High Line for at least three and a half years, first in eager anticipation of Joshua David and Robert Hammond’s inspired scheme but lately with something approaching exhaustion. So I was relieved this afternoon to find that the project—which officially opened to the public today—lives up to expectations. It is not only a beautiful and novel urban park, but a remarkably serene and even understated space. No doubt this impression is partly the result of today’s surprisingly sparse crowds (thanks to the several bouts of heavy rainfall that soaked the city earlier today). So, while the last thing the world needs is more photos of the High Line, I couldn’t resist taking some digital snapshots of its wonderfully mellow debut.
For now, visitors are being asked to enter the High Line at its southernmost tip, in the Meatpacking District at Gansevoort and Washington Streets.
The Friends of the High Line were advising visitors to expect large crowds, but when I arrived around 3 p.m. the entrance was practically deserted.
Andre Balazs’s new Standard Hotel, designed by Polshek Partnership, looms over the former train trestle.
The original railroad tracks are exposed at several points along the path.
Walking north, you pass beneath the Standard and another building under construction.
Looking out over West 14th Street
Farther north, these recliners were getting a lot of use.
And this sunken auditorium provides a nice view up 10th Avenue.
Looking west: Frank Gehry’s IAC headquarters and new condos by Shigeru Ban (center, under construction) and Annabelle Selldorf
To the east: Della Valle Bernheimer’s 18th Street condo (beyond the Armani Exchange billboard)
The landscape was designed by James Corner with the consultation of the planting designer Piet Oudolf.
Too bad about all the billboards…
The end of the High Line (for now)—section 2 is slated to open next year.
Looking south from the 20th Street exit
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while i love metropolis’ coverage of all things design, your understanding and coverage of landscape architecture still needs improvement. what rankles me this evening is your assertion that “james corner is responsible for the plantings.”
two things. one. james corner, the landscape architect, is responsible for THE WHOLE FUCKING THING! he was the lead designer. Diller Scofidio + Renfro were his subs. so, in a sense, yes, he is responsible for the plantings he is also responsible for everything else on the project.
second, he is not the consultant with principal responsibility for the plantings. that honor goes to piet oudolf.
this matters because for years landscape architects have been stuck in the pastoral shadow cast by olmsted. corner’s leadership as exemplified in this project—as well as other landscape architects concerned with the urban environment: van valkenburg, waldheim, chris reed, martha schwartz, to name a few—are finally stepping out of that shadow and creating their own guiding light for sustainable urbanism. to continue to relegate the profession solely to “planting” continues to perpetrate the myth that landscape architects are just about choosing the right plants, rather than engaging them as serious urbanists.
and in this case, it is also inaccurate journalism.
Comment by angrylandscapearchitect — June 10, 2009, @ 12:38 am
Angry — My mistake. I think you can chalk this one up to the hasty nature of blogging rather than the magazine’s lack of landscape-architecture coverage. You’ll notice that we ran a lengthy profile of James Corner last November that addresses this very issue:
“…Corner has constantly had to battle the misconception that the architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro—his subcontractors—did the heavy lifting while his team merely chose the shrubbery.”
Guilty as charged. I’m fixing the caption to give Corner his proper due.
Comment by Mason Currey — June 10, 2009, @ 7:45 am
thanks mason. you are right, metropolis nailed it in your interview with corner a few months back. sorry for the flame…late nights, caffiene, and civility goes out the door. thanks for the correction.
Comment by angrynomore — June 16, 2009, @ 10:45 pm
Reminiscent of its kin in the Bastille district of Paris, this promenade is a great piece of urban art that pays due homage to the industrial history of the structural artifact. I attended Mr. Corner’s lecture sponsored by the New York Botanical Garden last fall and went armed with all manner of pointed questions aimed at hoisting his petard for sweetening or obliterating the rusty-crusty quality of the space. His presentation and analysis took all the wind out of my sails. The design details are referential without being prosaic and the planting design by Oudolf is predictably inspired. The only regrettable thing about it is the brutally banal Standard Hotel….but another salute to the can’t die soon enough school of Soviet Socialist Architecture. One wonders what conclave of dimwits thought this blight on the axis of sky and green was a good idea. The Swells will be Swells one supposes.
The amphitheatre with its view trained up the avenue is an inspired gesture as well.
Corner’s firm is doing inspired analytical work that does not forget to pay attention to materials detail in its big-picture social-ecological thrust. As to Mr. Coffee’s concern about the showbiz architects, get used to it, the “landscape” name in our professional title consigns us to the role of “landscapers” and frill dispensers in the public mindset but at work, we are released to the dirty pleasures of a far deeper role. Those architects we may resent from time to time are paid back in how much more expressionistic freedom we enjoy in our alchemic work with the animal and plant spirits under an open sky. Too be sure, there are far worse things than Mr. Olmsted’s “pastoral shadow” to labor under. With this new addition to the New York fabric, it would seem that there is more than a little muscle connecting the work of Mr. Corner to sachem Olmsted. When urbanism was young in this city, Olmsted inserted nature as a block….rus in urb…. to relieve the pressures. Now, we must insert it strategically using many of the same elements. This project should get better and better and hopefully, will inspire a new era of green arteries within the existing urban fabric…..something Olmsted urged from the beginning.
Comment by D.W. Sabin — June 25, 2009, @ 11:07 am