The coolest thing about the Highline renovation project in the Chelsea/Meatpacking area is the anticipation of what the hell it's going to look like when completed. While shooting an architectural landscape job fourteen stories above the Highline today, I was able to sneak in a few shots of some early morning construction.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the project, the Highline is an elevated railway that was constructed in 1929 due to the city's problems with street level train traffic. Before it was built, there were so many train/pedestrian casualties on 10th Avenue, they used to call it "Death Avenue".
In the 1950's, interstate trucking gained much popularity and led to the decline of rail traffic on the Highline. Trains stopped running on it completely in 1980. Parts of it were torn down to make way for the enormous Jacob Javits Convention Center. For years it disintegrated and had no use for anybody but graffiti artists, drug addicts and the homeless.
In 1999, a group called "Friends of the Highline" was formed to advocate the preservation of the Highline, and to undergo a drastic transformation into public park space for the city. Over the next few years, the proposal for the massive project would be approved and granted over 15 million dollars to fund construction and engineering costs. To see plans and learn more about the Highline restoration, go to http://www.thehighline.org/.
