Since its inception in , walking the High Line has become a right of passage for almost anyone who visits the city. Manhattan in the s was very different from today. There were no bridges to the other boroughs, downtown was very industrial because of the bustling shipping industry, and there was no Naked Cowboy in Times Square. Though it might be hard to believe today, street-level freight trains used to run through lower Manhattan to deliver food.
This obviously created dangerous situations for pedestrians, so the city constructed an elevated rail line to fix the problem. Opened in , the original West Side Elevated Line transported meats, dairy, and produce through downtown, often cutting through buildings to make delivery easier.
As the century pressed on and trucking became more popular, rail use declined. Plants began to organically overtake the rail line, creating an urban wilderness above the streets of New York City. A few people hoped it would become a rollercoaster or a mile-long swimming pool. In , the first section of the new High Line opened. It exists today as a 1. I guess the swimming pool will have to wait.
Park Entrances: Access to the High Line is possible via any of the access points listed below:. Was this information helpful? Optional Please tell us how we can make this page more helpful. If you need a response,please use the Contact the Commissioner form instead. Some even compare it in importance to the Empire State Building. Bus : lines M11, M13, M23 and M The Federal Hall was the first capitol of the United States.
Established in the seventeenth century, George Washington was inaugurated as first President of the country here. Thanks to its length, the High Line is accessible via multiple subway stops and lines. For cyclists, both bike racks and Citi Bike docking stations are situated every few blocks along Tenth Avenue. The West Side Elevated Line opened in as a means for freight trains to pass above the city, after locomotives running at street level became a dicey prospect for pedestrians in the increasingly crowded neighborhood.
The trains carried food and other goods along tracks that ran as far south as Spring Street, weaving through and among the many factories that characterized the neighborhood at the time. As the decades passed in the 20th century, trucks displaced trains as a means of shipping, and the freight lines fell out of use.
The southern section of the Elevated Line was dismantled in the s, and the last train ran on the tracks in the autumn of Rudy Giuliani even signed a demolition order in his final days as mayor. In , Joshua David and Robert Hammond founded Friends of the High Line in order to advocate for a future park along the tracks—which at this point had taken on a rundown beauty, overgrown with native plants and grasses.
Construction began on the High Line in , and the first section—which went from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street—opened three years later. The remaining segments of the the park debuted over following five years most recently, the Rail Yards in The modern High Line boasts rotating public art exhibitions and food and gift vendors along its length, and weaves in and amongst glossy new developments.
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