Further down the street, just before 10th Avenue, there was a big black bridge. Solid, hulking, quiet. Beckoning. “What is that?” I thought. “I want to go up there.”
Soon I heard mention of the “High Line” and the newborn group Friends of the High Line, so I attended a community board meeting to learn more. The bridge, it turned out, was part of the last standing section of an elevated freight railway that moved goods between lower Manhattan and the Bronx from around 1930 to 1980. Mayor Giuliani and a group of developers called the Chelsea Property Owners were determined to tear down this pigeon-droppings-producing piece of “blight” and clear the way for fresh buildings to sprout.
But the Friends said no: Keep this physical piece of history, and make it public for all to go up there.
That proved a most simple and potent possibility. It led me, unemployed at the time, to spend hours on tasks assigned by Friends co-founder Joshua David: Call these people and solicit donations. Invite this list to write a letter, attend a meeting. Hand out information at that event. Find art for a tee shirt. See if we can have a presence at summer street fairs. Produce the street fair – get a tent and recruit other volunteers for sweaty shifts on 23rd Street one hot weekend, or Eighth Avenue another.
Overall the tasks yielded quick gratification, because the interest of others tended to appear as easily as my own. If you invite people to acknowledge, and eventually to enjoy, a park in the air, their eyes will light up. It speaks to our shared desires to ascend, to explore, to realize the potential of what’s already before us.
Despite the enthusiasm sparked by the proposal for a railroad-turned-park, making it real was still a long haul from 1999, when Joshua and fellow founder Robert Hammond met at one of those community meetings, to today, with the first section of the park just opened – and filled to capacity for much of this past weekend.
The pair found no one else organizing to preserve the structure, so they decided to try it themselves. A thousand steps unfolded, from first halting the planned demolition, to gaining cooperation from railroad owner CSX, to winning the efforts of officials at every level. A small staff and dedicated cadre of volunteers raised tens of millions of dollars, protected the integrity of the 1.5 mile structure amid controversies over proposed buildings and rezonings in the neighborhood, and led a design competition. They arrived at a plan that would embody the wildness everyone valued while allowing for droves of visitors, got the space absorbed into the city parks system, and eventually managed a major construction project.
Good luck played a role in the astonishing fact that today the rail is a park open to all, not just a notch in the belt of wily adventurers and graffiti taggers, or else torn down entirely. The High Line happened to be located in a receptive area, full of design lovers with talent and money to give. With Chelsea known as the center of the art world, it’s full of business people ready to encourage aesthetic innovation. Celebrities in the neighborhood got involved, attracting many other high-profile supporters. And those with power, such as then-City Council Speaker Gifford Miller – an old friend of Robert Hammond – and his ally, local City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, did not hesitate to aid the project, standing as an early bulwark against the wrecking ball.
