Urban Parks

Today I want to talk to you about a trend in urban renewal that I really like. Reclaiming blight and making it into parkland.

New York's High Line Park

The High Line was a subway train line in active use in New York City from its construction in the 1930's until 1980. After being decommissioned the elevated tracks just stood their and began to decay. Nearly twenty years of detritus accumulated in and around the tracks. Year after year more and more wind blown seeds would fly up there and germinate, ultimately creating a sort of wild pasture an mile and a half long.

Unfortunately the structure, though still basically sound, was slated for demolition under Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1999. Then a group called Friends of the High Line began to support saving the structure and turning it into a modern urban park.

The City invested more than $40 million to turn the High Line into a park and it was opened to the public in June of 2009. Now what was once a beautiful but somewhat dangerous and mostly unknown urban wilderness is now a safe and beautiful strip of green wending it's way through the city. Now the entire city can appreciate the High Line.

The reconstruction of the park included sustainability features such as water filtering systems that catch all of the rain water for use in irrigating the plants instead of continuing to damage the structure. This is a great way to re-use resources and make a part of the city that was blighted more livable again. In fact now that the park has opened more than 30 projects have started in the area along the park alignment.

Please take a look at the link I provided above. I'm sure that you'll find the park to be beautiful.