High Line History, Narrated by Ethan Hawke

[onthe1drop]

The HighLine is a beautiful park and piece of urban architecture, and also a wise redeployment of existing infrastructure instead of demolition.

However, there is a serious note of sadness and melancholy to the project. One recalls when the USA actually had a manufacturing base, and people in NYC actually made things. Also, this reminds one of a golden age of rail, replaced largely by dangerous, inelegant, and polluting trucks.

[Conducter49]

The park is very nice but i would have prefered a tourist railroads. By the way what happened to the locos?

[sternedwards]

In every promotional piece about the High Line a great deal of fanfare is made about the seeds, trees, shrubs, birds, and soil which proliferated and thrived after the structure was abandoned on a couple decades ago. Now, it seems that the preservationists cannot strip the structure of this nature fast enough. The very natural things that saved the structure are being destroyed, only to be replaced by a manicured, over-designed park. It seems like the original point has been lost somehow.