Tuesday, October 15, 2013

High Line, NYC

For our day in New York City we had wonderful weather as you can see.  We left home at 7:30 AM and arrived in NYC about 11:00 AM.  We walked over from Penn Station right to the top of the High Line, which was just a few blocks away.

The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 when the historic structure was under threat of demolition. Friends of the High Line works in partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park. 

Since I found out about this I have wanted to walk it, so this was first on our one day agenda.


Here they are working on some further extensions to the High Line.








I saw this guy looking at the gas staion; which made me take a close look and guess what yes sheep, not real ones but an art project Sheep in NYC gas station.






El Anatsui, Broken Bridge

Nigerian born El Anatsui says this about his wall artwork:

I come from a place where you have a lot of sky. The sky starts from almost ground level and goes up. But over here you have to really look up to realize that there is eventually sky somewhere. That’s almost the experience of most people who live in open country and they come to New York—sky is not a common commodity.”

I think my photo below captures what he is saying.





Just some of the wild plants growing on the High Line.







We took a rest with our hibiscus flower ice pops.


Just below the top bridge in the very far distance is the Statue of Liberty.



I love the High Line Logo seen as part of the design on all the metal rails.  You know I'm big on Logo design.






People looked like they got here early and camped out for the day.







This is at the bottom, South end of the High Line.  In what was the meat packing area, I hope this area was nothing like The Jungle  by Upton Sinclair; set in the Chicago stock yards and meat packing area.  I read The Jungle this summer while on vacation in Florida, it certainly was not light reading but very compelling, the publication of this book led to social change in the meat packing business.

From here we descended the steps to move on south in Manhattan.

Christy

1 comment:

  1. I loved this walk. The views and all the plants were amazing.

    ReplyDelete

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