[NYguy]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/n...high-line.html

$60 Million High Line Expansion to Connect Park to Moynihan Train Hall
Gov. Andrew Cuomo will propose a 1,200-foot elevated pathway that will lead to the new Penn Station development, to be financed by public and private funds.


By Mihir Zaveri and Daniel E. Slotnik
Jan. 11, 2021

For more than a decade, the High Line, an elevated park that stretches for nearly a mile and half through the West Side of Lower Manhattan, has been a symbol of ambitious urban renewal: a sleek, tree-lined walkway created from an old run-down rail line that cuts through once-industrial neighborhoods.

Before the pandemic, it had become a major New York destination for residents and out-of-town visitors alike, drawing about eight million people in 2019.

And now, the park, which showed how the city could reinvent itself and reimagine decaying spaces, is to be expanded.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday that the High Line will be extended to connect to the newly opened Moynihan Train Hall, a project that he said help spur development in the surrounding neighborhoods and boost an economy facing a deep crisis because of the pandemic.

The new link, officials said, will provide an alternative way to access the new station, which serves Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad. It’s part of a broader package, including the new train hall and improvements sought for Pennsylvania Station, that seeks to improve the experience of taking mass transportation into and out of New York City.

A 1,200-foot elevated walkway will connect the existing High Line at 30th Street to a pedestrian path at Manhattan West, a mixed used development adjacent to the train hall.

State officials could not provide a specific timeline on when construction on the expansion would start or when they expected it to be complete.

The state is also eyeing another possible expansion of the High Line to connect it north to Pier 76 on West 38th Street, where Mr. Cuomo wants to turn a Police Department tow pound into another park. The existing High Line travels 1.45 miles from 34th Street south to Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District.

State officials estimate the connector between the High Line and Moynihan Train Hall would cost about $60 million, though that figure could change.

Mr. Cuomo said one-third of it would be financed by the state; another third would come from Brookfield Properties, the developer of the mixed-use development next to the train hall; and the remainder would come from nonprofit groups and other private organizations.