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What a great piece of urban reuse!
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http://chelseanow.com/CN_124/parkinsky.html
‘Park in sky’ chugging along toward June opening http://chelseanow.com/CN_124/hart.jpg Flats of grasses and perennials await planting on the High Line between the reinstalled railroad tracks in the park’s Gansevoort Woodland section. By Katie Lorah In just a few months, the first section of the High Line will open to the public. Section 1 of the park runs through the Meatpacking District and the southernmost blocks of Chelsea, from Gansevoort St. to 20th St. An exact opening date has yet to be set, but is likely to fall in early June. The second section, from 20th St. to 30th St., is projected to open one year later. To get ready for the High Line’s debut, contractors are now putting the finishing touches on the park’s landscape, in the final stage of the landscape work that began more than a year ago. First, the construction crew installed the High Line’s pathways, made of long, smooth, concrete planks. The planks were designed to taper at their ends to allow the plantings to push up between them, just as grass grew up in the gravel ballast of the original High Line rail bed. Many of the High Line’s original steel railroad tracks have been returned to their locations, integrated into the planting beds. The beds themselves were then prepared, using a layered system much like a typical green roof. Several layers of specialized material — a perforated drainage mat, pea gravel and filter fabric, were installed to aid in soil drainage. Two layers of soil — a coarse subsoil and a nutrient-rich topsoil — were then delivered and spread into the planting beds. At the same time, lighting, irrigation and rodent-proofing systems were installed. Last fall, a team of landscape specialists began working to bring the High Line’s planting beds to life, as envisioned by planting designer Piet Oudolf. Since then, the one-of-a-kind landscape has taken shape block by block. With the help of landscape contracting company Siteworks, the Section 1 environment of hardy perennials, textural grasses, shrubs and trees has taken root on the High Line. There are roughly 210 different plant species in the beds of Section 1, ranging from a meadow-like mix of asters, goldenrod and big bluestem grass in the low beds of the Sundeck, to a grove of gray birch and serviceberry trees as part of the Gansevoort Woodland. Besides the planting work, several of the High Line’s special design features are nearing completion. The monumental “Slow Stairs” are now in place at the future High Line access point at Gansevoort St. This blocklong staircase rises from street level, underneath the High Line, to cut through the steel of the structure itself. Visitors will ascend along the staircase, coming face to face with the High Line’s heavy steel girders and hand-driven rivets, before emerging into the wild landscape above. With the adjacent site being planned as the new Whitney Museum, the southern terminus of the High Line is set to become one of the city’s liveliest new public spaces. At 17th St., large window-like cutouts were recently made in the steel of the High Line’s Tenth Avenue Square, one of Section 1’s most unique design features. Soon, glass will be installed, providing High Line visitors with a view up Tenth Ave., and a peek into the park to those walking below. Amphitheater-like seating, doubling as a ramp and staircase, will allow High Line visitors to drop down into the steel structure of the Square. In the coming weeks, work on the High Line’s access points, planting beds, pathways and seating will be completed. While two-thirds of the High Line is owned by the city and is currently under construction to become a park, the future of the northernmost section, around the West Side Rail Yards, remains undecided. There is still a chance that this section could be partially or fully demolished, depending on a planning process now taking place between the city, the New York State-run M.T.A. and The Related Companies, the private developer leasing the site. The 26-acre rail yards site is the largest developable plot of land in Manhattan, and the current scheme calls for more than 12 million square feet of commercial and residential development, along with several acres of public open space. Friends of the High Line, along with Community Board 4 and many elected officials, is advocating for the full preservation of the entire High Line at the rail yards, and its integration into the site. Friends of the High Line is encouraging the city to take ownership of this section of the High Line, much like it did with the rest of the High Line in 2005. To find out more about the High Line at the rail yards, and to learn how you can help save the entire High Line, please visit www.thehighline.org. The opening of the first section of the High Line will be celebrated in June with a street festival, put on by Friends of the High Line. The festival will also celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of Friends of the High Line, and the 75th anniversary of the High Line itself. (It was completed in 1934 to lift dangerous freight trains off the city’s streets.) There will be a variety of free public programming, both on and off the High Line, during the park’s inaugural summer. More information about what’s planned for the opening season will be announced through Friends of the High Line’s e-mail newsletter. You can sign up to receive updates and information on how you can get involved at www.thehighline.org. You can also read the latest construction updates and announcements on the High Line Blog, www.thehighline.org/blog. http://chelseanow.com/CN_124/treesgreen.jpg Clockwise from above left, workers install foliage in between the High Line’s pathways; trees, with root balls wrapped in burlap, that will be planted in the park’s Gansevoort Woodland section; the newly installed, blocklong “Slow Stairs,” part of the Gansevoort St. access point, will bring visitors up through the structure itself. |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/ar...gn/09pols.html
Industrial Sleek (a Park Runs Through It) http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...s/pols.600.jpg The new Standard Hotel in the meatpacking district rises atop the High Line, at left, abandoned elevated rail tracks that are being converted into a greenway. By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF April 8, 2009 It would be easy to dismiss the new Standard Hotel in the meatpacking district as a final shout-out to the age of excess. The entire area, whose trendy shops and cafes must still contend with the occasional whiff of rotten meat, reflects a development culture run amok. Serious Architecture for the Standard Well, that would be a mistake. The boutique hotel, designed by Polshek Partnership, is serious architecture. The first of a string of projects linked to the development of the High Line, a park being built on a segment of abandoned elevated rail tracks, the new building’s muscular form is strong enough to stand up to both its tacky neighbors and the area’s older industrial structures. Its location, on Washington Street at West 13th Street, exploits the clash of scales that has always been a gripping aspect of the city’s character. In short, it is the kind of straightforward, thoughtfully conceived building that is all too rare in the city today. Part of this is due to its stunning position. The partially open hotel — 19 floors and 337 rooms — is the only new building that rises directly over the elevated park. The towering structure is supported on massive concrete pillars, while a ground-floor restaurant and garden cafe are tucked underneath the High Line’s hefty steel frame. I admit to some mixed feelings about the restaurant. Clad in recycled brick, it’s meant to reflect the neighborhood’s old identity as the city’s meat market. A slick black metal canopy is a spiffed-up version of the decrepit canopies that once lined the neighborhood’s sidewalks, without the beef carcasses. The garden’s brick paving and industrial light fixtures look quaintly European. Over all the effect feels about as genuine as a Hollywood back lot. Still, Polshek smartly plays up the contrast between these spaces and the tough brick, concrete and steel structures that surround it. From the garden cafe people can look up at the High Line’s gorgeous steel underbelly. One of the most enticing fire stairs runs down the side of a concrete leg supporting the hotel, crashing down on the restaurant’s roof before tumbling out on the sidewalk. Polshek was also careful to segregate the various entries — to the hotel, restaurant and a lounge that will open this summer on the 18th floor — so that hotel guests won’t feel as though they are trapped in an entertainment hell for 20-somethings. (The Standard’s owner, André Balazs, is negotiating with the city to create a more direct connection between the hotel and the High Line, which would significantly diminish this effect as well as compromise the park’s public quality.) It’s only once you get off the ground, however, that you appreciate the design’s true flair. The hotel is set at a slight angle to the High Line (part of which is to open in June), creating a delicious tension as its deck passes underneath. The building bends slightly near the center, giving it a more streamlined appearance in the skyline and orienting the rooms toward the most spectacular views. To the southwest the facade is angled toward a sweeping view across the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty. To the northeast, guests look out across jagged rooftops to the Empire State Building. This sense of floating within the city is reinforced by the arrangement of some of the rooms. The rectangular ones on the south side of the building are laid out with their long side along floor-to-ceiling windows. The effect is to bring you up closer to the glass, so that you feel as though you were suspended in midair, with the city just underneath your feet. (Mr. Balazs confessed to an instant of vertigo when he first stepped into one of these rooms.) These are simple but powerful moves. And they are a reminder that enveloping a structure in a flamboyant wrapper is not always the most effective way to create lasting architecture. In the wrong hands, too much creative freedom can be outright dangerous. With the Standard Hotel, Polshek Partnership joins a handful of other midlevel firms that are beginning to find the right balance between innovation and restraint. These include the designers of the Bank of America building in Midtown and 1 Madison Park, two projects under construction that suggest a revival of the kind of smart, sleek and confident architecture popularized by architects as diverse as Morris Lapidus and Gordon Bunshaft in the 1950s and ’60s. Those architects didn’t want to start a revolution; they wanted to make glamorous buildings. Whether this trend will survive the current financial climate, of course, is another matter. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...rts/stand1.jpg The new Standard Hotel in the meatpacking district is the first of a string of projects linked to the development of the High Line, a park being built on a segment of abandoned elevated rail tracks. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...rts/stand2.jpg The towering structure, designed by Polshek Partnership, is supported on huge concrete pillars, while a ground-floor restaurant and garden cafe are tucked underneath the High Line’s hefty steel frame. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...rts/stand3.jpg A view of the lobby. “It would be easy to dismiss the new Standard Hotel in the meatpacking district as a final shout-out to the age of excess. . . . That would be a mistake. The boutique hotel is serious architecture,” writes The Times’s Nicolai Ouroussoff. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...rts/stand4.jpg The building bends slightly near the center, giving it a more streamlined appearance in the skyline and orienting the rooms toward the most spectacular views. To the southwest the facade is angled toward a sweeping view across the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...rts/stand5.jpg An elevator bank. “With the Standard Hotel, Polshek Partnership joins a handful of other midlevel firms that are beginning to find the right balance between innovation and restraint,” writes Mr. Ouroussoff. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...rts/stand7.jpg The Standard, he writes, “is the kind of straightforward, thoughtfully conceived building that is all too rare in the city today.” |
This project is too good to be true, what an amazing yet simple use for those tracks!
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I just can't wait until the first opening in June.
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Reply
Hi,
wow thats very impressive!!! this is indeed a very cool project.. |
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04272009...pes_166465.htm
HIGH HOPES MEATPACK TOWER UP FOR VOTE http://www.nypost.com/seven/04272009...pack_tower.jpg This rendering shows the plan for a 13-story tower at 13th and Washington streets. By TOM TOPOUSIS April 27, 2009 Darryl Romanoff started working in Manhattan's meat industry when he was a teenager, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. But now that the industry is high-tailing it from Manhattan's now-trendy Meatpacking District, Romanoff wants to turn one of the family's plants into a 13-story tower. "We're not a fly-by-night developer that swoops in because the neighborhood is hot," said Romanoff, whose family has been entrenched in the district for more than 80 years. Romanoff's proposal for 13th and Washington streets goes before the city's Board of Standards and Appeal tomorrow, when he will ask for approval to build four stories higher than local zoning allows. Romanoff said the added costs of building next to and under the High Line, coupled with the environmental clean-up that's needed, mean that he can't build a smaller tower that's economically viable. The project has the support of the neighborhood's commercial property owners, including fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. "The Romanoffs are the first family of the Meatpacking District and they went out of their way to make sure this building fits in nicely with the community," she said. The project faces some opposition. Community Board 2 generally approved of the project, although it had concerns about the size. "We think it would fit nicely in the fabric of the neighborhood," said Romanoff, adding that tenants would be from creative fields. "It's not going to be Midtown law firms coming down here." |
Pics from the week before last...
http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1241129719 http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1241129706 http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1241129730 http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1241129868 http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1241129968 http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1241129950 http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1241129959 |
^ Nice. About a month and a half before the first phase opens...
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The prospect of going to New York and walking on that is making me salivate...
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Just another month until we're up there...
a tanz http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/...edf2f776_o.jpg |
BTW, here are those potraits that people took (from A to Z) in front of a High Line backdrop (photo)...
http://www.thehighline.org/portraits/a |
http://thevillager.com/villager_316/thehighline.html
The High Line park is steaming quickly toward grand debut By Patrick Hedlund May 20 - 26, 2009 Quote:
http://curbed.com/archives/2009/05/2..._high_line.php Construction Watch: HL23 Tops Out Over the High Line http://curbednetwork.com/cache/galle...3abfb0b3_o.jpg Friday, May 22, 2009, by Pete Quote:
http://curbednetwork.com/cache/galle...a7095b21_o.jpg http://curbednetwork.com/cache/galle...7f2134ab_o.jpg http://curbednetwork.com/cache/galle...13036667_o.jpg__http://curbednetwork.com/cache/galle...076cd31f_o.jpg |
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http://www.multichannel.com/article/...e_Stories_.php
Sundancechannel.com Tells 10 'High Line Stories' Profiles Of Backers Of NYC Railway-Turned-Park Will Air on Network Later http://www.multichannel.com/photo/10..._High_Line.jpg 5/14/2009 Sundancechannel.com is premiering High Line Stories, profiling those involved in transforming the elevated railway on the west side of Manhattan, starting May 26. The series tells the story of the High Line in New York City, profiling those involved in transforming this neglected, 1.5 mile elevated railway into a park in the sky. Celebrities and city officials, artists and architects are featured, exploring their relationship to the High Line, what it means for New York City and how it represents an example of taking a derelict post-industrial site (as seen in the Joel Sternfeld photo at left) and making it green and beautiful. ASICS is the sponsor. The episodes will be used as interstitial programming later on Cablevision-owned Sundance Channel. The Web site will feature exclusive material such as photographs, architectural drawings and an interview with Robert Hammond and Joshua David exploring urban renewal in Sundancechannel.com's new blog, SUNfiltered. The 10 High Line Stories episodes line up this way: 1: Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker; 2. Adrian Benepe, commissioner, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation; 3. Amanda Burden, chair, New York City Planning Commission; 4. James Corner, landscape architect for the High Line, and Piet Oudolf, planting designer for the High Line; 5. Diane von Furstenberg, fashion designer; 6. Ric Scofidio and Liz Diller, High Line architects; 7. Ethan Hawke, actor; 8. Joel Sternfeld, photographer; 9. Robert Hammond and Joshua David, co-founders of Friends of the High Line; 10. Kevin Bacon, actor. _________________________________________ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tra...cle6293532.ece The High Line: New York's newest park Central Park, your time is up - The High Line will be a thin strip of calm running through the city http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...l__556228a.jpg May 17, 2009 Paul Croughton Central Park, Schmentral Park. New York’s most famous green space is about to become old news. In terms of public parkland, there’s a new kid on the block. Twenty-two blocks, actually. New York’s latest development, the High Line, stretches 1.45 miles along Manhattan’s West Side, from Gansevoort Street, in the Meatpacking District, up through Chelsea to 34th Street. But it’s not your average urban park — at its broadest, it is only 60ft wide, and it’s between 18ft and 30ft high. Yes, high. The High Line runs along a disused elevated rail line that, for most of the 20th century, carried freight up and down one side of the island. The last train ran in 1980, pulling three carloads of frozen turkeys. After that, a lot of the line fell into disrepair, with weeds and grasses pushing up between the tracks. According to one High Line official, one of mayor Rudy Giuliani’s last acts in office, in 2001, was to sign the demolition order for the line. Then, thanks to a timely intervention by the office’s next incumbent, Michael Bloomberg, as well as considerable campaigning by the action group Friends of the High Line (which counts the actor Edward Norton among its most vigorous advocates), it was saved for greater things. Next month, the first section will open as an elevated public space, with spectacular views over the Hudson River and of the New York skyline. What’s it going to be like? Well, I walked the length of the first section — from Gansevoort to 20th Street — and it was a surreal experience. New York is a noisy, angry city, full of honks, shouts and squeals, but only a few feet above it all, it’s surprisingly peaceful. Sure, it might be a bit less so once it’s fully open to a honking, shouting, squealing public — and their no doubt even more vocal offspring — but I can understand claims that the High Line will offer a little peace away from the pavement. Sorry, sidewalk. It’s going to look pretty special, too, but then so it should for £112m. Proposals to design the new park were submitted by 720 teams from 36 countries: Field Operations, an American landscape architecture firm, together with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, were awarded the contract. They’ve used plenty of steel and exposed concrete, running in parallel lines, to reference the High Line’s original incarnation, as well as glass in places. Sleek curves give it a contemporary feel. There are water features, children’s play areas, viewing platforms, sun decks with what looked like rock-solid loungers — it was hard to tell, they were still wrapped in layer upon layer of plastic sheeting — and spaces earmarked for public performances and exhibitions. It sounds great, and it’s not often a public space of this size (even if it is a bit thin) gets to be designed from the ground up. Literally. From your elevated position, you get to play hide-and-seek with the horizon, visible down valleys of brick and building as you walk past block after block. Along other stretches, however, there are uninterrupted views out to Staten Island and the Statue of Liberty, and the sunsets are pretty special. I had to climb a rickety staircase to get up there for this sneak preview, but there will be lifts and escalators at strategic points throughout the development in time for the cutting of the ribbon. Despite the forthcoming opening and the ensuing fanfare that will, quite rightly, greet it, there is work to do. While the first section is ready, and the second section is due to open next year, there is still a doubt about what will happen to the third part, from 30th Street heading north. Talks are under way to decide whether it gets to join up with the rest of the High Line in elevated, landscaped splendour or is demolished. Once New Yorkers and tourists get to jostle for space on those lovely sun loungers, I can’t imagine that the Friends of the High Line will let the rest of the potential park disappear without a fight. Let’s hope the High Line is allowed to grow into something truly spectacular. |
I am just amazed at how well this project has come together. We can only hope other cities use it as an example of what to do right.
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A little video...
http://link.brightcove.com/services/...id=22907602001 |
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