By late fall, the High Line will have traversed 1.45 miles to reach its final destination on grade at 34th Street west of Eleventh Avenue, south of and parallel to the Jacob Javits Center. Then, in some manner it will be incorporated into a redesigned street which will carry pedestrians north through Hudson Park and Boulevard which may one day take us to 42nd Street. It will also connect to the new terminus for the Number Seven subway line which is scheduled to open this year as well.
This final section, costing around 35 million dollars, has been designed by the architects for the High Line, James Cormer Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. It will skirt the massive Hudson Yards Project being built by Related Companies and Goldman Sachs over 26 acres of rail yards containing some 5000 apartments in eight massive towers climbing up to 80 stories. The High Line will loop to the west, coming closer to the Hudson River Park than any location along its entire route. Unfortunately, it will fail to connect to the park itself, either here or at its southern end where it drops to the ground under the Downtown Whitney Museum, leaving the six to eight lane highway as a permanent barrier to the waterfront. It will turn to the east in its final run into the surface of 34th Street as it rises to meet the curvature of the land.
This final leg, unlike the southern portion between Gansevoort and 30th Streets, will receive none of the financial subsidies provided under the zoning law covering the Special West Chelsea Zoning District which stretches from West 16th Street to West 30th Street. These subsidies arise from bonuses granted to builders allowing them to build up to 50% larger than allowed under the basic zoning envelope. Also, property owners adjacent to the west side of the High Line along the High Line Transportation Corridor may sell up to 280,000 square feet of air rights to owners elsewhere in the special district with a rough market value of $140 million, if a market can be found. Ironically, the owners of these rights originally obtained the agreement of former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to tear down the High Line entirely, an action fortunately reversed by Mayor Bloomberg, who took possession of the railroad for the city. These same owners later obtained the promise of candidate Bill DeBlasio to kill the horse and carriage trade in Central Park in hopes of taking over their stables for high rise development (See WestView, April 2014). For each square foot thus sold from the corridor, a fifty dollar contribution will have to be placed into High Line Improvement Fund “to assure that the High Line is restored and reused as a public accessible open space.”
In addition, “for zoning lots located between West 16th and West 19th Streets over which the High Line passes,” the permissible floor area can be increased by up to fifty percent. These air rights can then be transferred to lots along the 100 foot wide peripheries of the district leading to heights of up to 390 feet along Eleventh Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets. Generally, the scale of the district is low with the buildings north of 19th Street along the park now being topped off at eight stories. It is this low predominant height and rich variety of architecture which defines the edges of the park and enriches the experience of the promenade along its length. In fact, as the High Line leads northward, more and more people use it to stretch their legs and enjoy the presence of other walkers. Also more people are commuting by foot on the High Line to jobs and appointments. What is so special about it is its elevation above the streets and occasional views of the waterfront. As one man said to his friend, “Isn’t it wonderful? You don’t have to cross any streets.” The views, however, will be increasingly compromised as low and empty lots north of 16th Street will fill up with buildings. As architecture increasingly defines the park edge, greater importance will have to be attached to design and landscaping.
When Reclaiming the High Line was published by the Design Trust for Public Space in 2002, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers wrote, “Preventing the High Line’s complete erasure is more than merely saving a piece of the city’s history. It is preservation at its best: maintaining a portion of the palimpsest so that denizens of this richly layered city can enjoy both past and present simultaneously.” Or as another visitor said it to me, “This allows me to see the guts and grit of the city.” We are indeed fortunate to be present at the birth of one of the most creative parks in the world.
