Jul 15, 2002 | Q
Anyone who’s ever spent any time on the lower West Side of Manhattan and wondered what’s up on the abandoned elevated rails that start in the 30s and meander southward needs to take a look at Rosecrans Baldwin’s The High Line, a photo essay capturing images from one end of the line to the other.
(The tracks were once called the High Line, and they supported the railway cars that brought supplies into the factories and meat packing plants that lined Chelsea’s western border. As with anything else in New York City, there are a lot of dreamers who have ideas for reuse of the old structures.)
I highly recommend the walk for anyone with an hour and a half on their hands (it takes about forty-five minutes each way). Very strange, and you can peep into lots of apartments.
I was scared as fuck the entire time.
• Posted by: rosecrans on Jul 16, 2002, 4:18 PMBoy, wish I’d done that when I lived there. I did poke around the Harsimus Stem Embankment of the Erie Lackawanna RR in Jersey City when I lived next to it, though.
• Posted by: Dan Hartung on Jul 18, 2002, 3:44 AMThe poor highline people are never going to get it together. As someone who works (pretty much literally) under the highline, I’m kind of glad. It’s a beautiful, desiccated remnant. Besides, it runs by the temporary FBI space, and then right into the DEA building. I don’t think they’re going to have any fancy pants cafes and whatnots within 200 yards of their arsenal headquarters.
• Posted by: Choire on Jul 24, 2002, 7:07 PM