http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...n_as_grit.html
Old railway on West Side will open as gritty, $172M elevated park
BY Joe Kemp and Erin Einhorn
Sunday, June 7th 2009
After 10 years, New Yorkers who want to be above it all will at last get to enjoy the city's first mid-air park this week.
"It's one of the most unique parks in the world," gushed Robert Hammond, one of two West Siders who first dreamed of a soaring trail of green along an old elevated freight line. "You experience the city in a completely different way."
The first nine-block section of the 30-to-60-foot-wide High Line will open three stories above the street for the first time on Tuesday - a path that, for now, will stretch from Gansevoort St. in the Meatpacking District to 20th St. in Chelsea.
A second phase, extending to 30th St., opens next year.
The park, which slips through buildings in places and curls around the densely packed neighborhood of industrial buildings and gleaming new apartment towers, was championed at celebrity-studded fund-raisers that drew stars including David Bowie, Kevin Bacon and Edward Norton.
But the biggest supporters are the taxpayers.
The $172 million price tag for the first phases includes $130 million from the city and $20 million from the federal government. That's $8 million per block.
Most of the rest of the budget comes from private donors.
"It's a large number," said city Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, whose agency controls the park. "Many of us were skeptical that this could happen ... but it makes sense when you realize how little open space there was in this part of Manhattan."
The High Line had been rusting since 1980, when it carried its last train after nearly 50 years in operation.
Benepe said he dismissed the crazy suspended park idea when he first heard it, but - stunned by views of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and the Hudson River - he eventually came around.
"Slowly it dawned on me that it could happen, that it might happen, that it had a chance of happening and now we've come to the day when the first phase is done," Benepe said.
Neighbors say they can't wait.
"We're thrilled," said LeCee Johnson, 56, who lives beside the High Line. "This was ugly. It was just sitting there ... but it turned out lovely."
She wasn't fazed by the price tag
"We should spend money on things that benefit," she said. "We need more spaces like this."
After all the struggle - the difficulty of hauling concrete and construction materials up to the High Line on cranes, the careful effort to remove lead paint and other toxins - parkgoers will find a space that's more urban gritty than English garden.
The Daily News slipped onto the elevated park last week and saw mostly unmanicured concrete paths weaving through sections of rescued railroad tracks, gravel and wildflowers. Visitors can access the park at Gansevoort, 14th, 16th, 18th and 20th Sts.
There are benches, rolling lounge chairs, water fountains and a section of path that dips below the iron trestle for striking views of street life on 10th Ave.
Designers went for an industrial look to invoke the neighborhood's commercial past and for plants that invoked the ones that burst naturally through the rust in the 1990s.
"I'm excited," said resident Lexie Helgerson, 24. "Any part of the city that gives you more access to nature is definitely positive ... I like the idea of restoring an old part of the city."