This hanging garden is New York's railway to the future
With his fighter's build and hard hat, construction inspector Gerard Zimmermann doesn't look the sentimental type. But at New York's newest park, sentiments are not easily kept in check. After three years of work to transform an abandoned elevated railway into a hanging garden, Zimmermann brims with the pride of a new parent.
"Do you like it?" he keeps asking passersby. "What, not even a smile?" he pleads to a pretty young woman.
The woman smiles. Zimmermann beams.
"A lot of sweat went into this," he says of the High Line Park, which opened to the public for the first time last week. "And a little blood. And a few tears."
If the creators of the High Line wondered whether the city would embrace the eccentric, slender addition to New York's green space, they were soon reassured.
Already by early morning, mid-week, dozens of tourists, students and retirees, and a few skipping work, meandered along the old railway looking out over Manhattan's Meatpacking District and the Hudson River. Wild flowers, herbs and other plants in and around old rail tracks drew gasps of admiration from residents used to little more than brick and concrete.
One young man intently photographed a bunch of modest-looking flowers. A woman gazed admiringly at tufts of grass planted in gaps in the concrete.
"The grass – it's so artistic," the woman enthused to a passerby. The happy crowd was following tracks that until three decades ago carried trainloads of carcasses daily into meathouses to be turned into sausages, mince and steaks.
The Meatpacking District had 250 slaughterhouses and processing plants by 1900. And in 1934, freight trains were routed onto the newly built High Line to prevent deadly accidents in the street – a danger previously addressed by having a horseman ride in front of the engine. Then changing technology and a surge in truck traffic killed the old system, turning the Meatpacking District into a ghost town.
In 1980 the last meat train rolled out with a consignment of frozen turkeys and the High Line was abandoned. "There used to be 100 rail cars coming in a day," said Miro Rames, 65, at one of the last surviving meatpackers, Jobbagy's.
"Every door you see now had a meathouse. There was nothing else. Then they got Mexicans out west to chop it up and ship it here and it killed us."
The High Line seemed fated for the wrecking ball until 1999, when two local residents proposed re-imagining this symbol of urban decay as a symbol of city's future. It was still not until April 2006 before preservation work began and even now only one part of the line, about 2.4-km long, has been made into a park. Another section approximately the same length is due to open next year and there are hopes to save a third piece.
But what started as a quixotic preservation campaign became a gravy train attracting New York's real estate developers, architects and celebrities. Just the prospect of this green ribbon of renewal was enough to fuel a construction boom, with buildings designed by the likes of Jean Nouvel and Frank Gehry popping up in parallel to the park.
Hollywood stars and clothes designers, already patrons of the neighbourhood's trendy boutiques and restaurants, became backers and funders. Before the public were allowed to set foot in the place, the city's beau monde came to drink champagne and admire the views.
As Michael Bloomberg, the city's billionaire mayor, said at the ribbon cutting ceremony: "Ten years ago, detractors thought the High Line was an eyesore. Thankfully, there were a handful of people who looked at the High Line and saw also an extraordinary gift."
The High Line rescue team also included ordinary New Yorkers such as Marlene Litwin, 74, who volunteered with other amateurs to collect wild seeds from the derelict tracks for replanting in the renovated version.
Rames looked up at the hanging garden from the street with mixed emotions.
"This whole place changed. You can't really criticise anyone. It's not for the worse – it's just different," he said, his white apron streaked with blood.
"They did a nice job. But it's like being in a different time zone for me. The twilight zone."
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