The High Line

 

The High Line used to be one of NYC’s mysteries. When I lived in New York in the mid- to late-nineties, I’d often wonder about this stretch of disused elevated railway. So many famous photographs of New York feature street life in the shadows of the Second Avenue El; the High Line served as reminder of this older type of city landscape. Also, for much of the time I lived in New York, I slept with my head meters from another set of elevated tracks in West Harlem; the view from my window above my bathtub stretched north along the tracks, the Hudson River to the left, the George Washington Bridge framing the horizon. I loved the neighbourhood sheltered under the Henry Hudson Parkway and the elevated line: the meatpacking plants, the strip joints, the autobody shops, the community of fisherman clustered on the pier at the end of 125th Street. Sometimes the light filtering through the tracks would cast the street below in bamboo blind-like stripes of light and dark straight out of a Berenice Abbott photograph. 

I first thought about trespassing on the High Line when I read Lisa and Michael’s accounts of doing so. At the time, I thought I was up for it; took my camera, made my way to the on-ramp through the truck lot below the Javits Center. I loitered a bit. Thought about barbed-wire, about being lost, getting caught. I chickened out. It’s a regret, but not a huge one. I’ve looked at Joel Sternfeld’s photographs a lot over the years and have been very glad of them. I shuddered whilst reading reports of redevelopment proposals. But some of the things I’ve heard make it seem like it’s worked out. One is Bill Cunningham’s report. (If you don’t know Bill Cunningham, read this.) I’m not overly interested in clothes, but I love his On The Street reports, his enthusiasm, optimism, the way he says “maaaaarvellous.” He is ebullient most of the time, but he’s absolutely beside himself talking about the High Line: he sees the future of America in it. Visit if you can, and let me know what you think.

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