The High LineThe High Line, located in New York City, is an elevated public park designed to create healthy and connected neighborhoods. The park became an icon of adaptive reuse within an urban setting, and resultantly turned into a cultural phenomenon, causing an increase in rents of surrounding apartments and buildings with a decrease in economic diversity. With the adaptation of the park and increase in rent came a demographically divided neighborhood, with businesses in Chelsea closing and a dramatic decrease in crime. Also, following the commercial success, rather than communal, other cities started to follow in the path of the gentrification of neighborhoods. As it stands today, the High Line represents an economic boost for the city but came at the cost of unintended consequences.
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Design Decision(s) |
In 2009, the first section of the High Line, a landmark of contemporary landscape and adaptive reuse within an urban setting, opened to the public from the grounds of a former spur of the New York Central Railroad. The elevated park extends from Gansevoort Street, through Chelsea, all the way to 34th Street. As the previously housed viaduct became abandoned in 1980 with the decline in rail line use, the Friends of the High Line group became the only ones to oversee maintenance of the urban “eyesore”, and thus opened an ideas competition around the world to find out what comes next. Four finalists from the competition proposed framework plans and the finalist team of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, James Corner Field Operations, and Piet Oudolf was selected to follow through with final designs. As the park stands today, 1.45 miles of paths, plants, and public space house diverse public programs, performances, artwork, and community engagement with additional sections planned to open in years to come. Becoming one of the most popular attractions for tourists with around eight million in 2019, the High Line found itself featured in celebrity photo shoots, movies, TV shows and even as the brand of a line of perfume. The elevated park practices sustainability daily as it has been a core value of the public space and overall initial design.
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Social Impact |
Although the High Line was initially designed to be a center for the surrounding community to come together and engage as an adapting neighborhood within an urban environments such as New York City, problems began to emerge along with the booming success. As the abandoned rail line recycled into the tourist park it is now, Chelsea became revitalized from its poorly maintained state it was previously in and thus inspired continual real-estate development to line the neighborhood. In 2009, there were more than 30 projects planned to be under construction adjacent to the High Line, and 11 of the projects continued as planned by 2016. The value of the surrounding properties already in place also increased by an average of 10%. The residents who encompass the High Line have also taken it upon themselves to adapt with the park in the ways they and their homes live. However, along with this boom in interest came the eventual division of demographics. Many businesses soon closed their doors with the lack of a steady customer base and the increase of rent within buildings such as the Chelsea Mall. Estimates from the Friends of the High Line found the park increasing the tax revenue of the city by $250 million because of the increase in real estate values over the following 20 years. Robert Hammond, The Friends of the High Line co-founder was interviewed in 2017 and confessed that their project never fulfilled the original purpose of the design to serve and provide for the surrounding community, but instead unintentionally created a demographic and economic division within the neighborhood.
With the obvious negative aspects brought to the local community from the High Line, there were also many positive results. One such being the disappearance of major crimes within the park as the park is never empty and almost always has visitors. The urban park has shown economic success for the city of New York, and thus inspired cities around the world, such as Chicago and Philadelphia, to remodel their railroad infrastructure into an adapted park. Some estimates have even seen that it costs less to adapt an abandoned rail line into a park such as the High Line than it does to demolish it. The Friends of the High Line created the High Line Network in 2016 to help initiate and support projects of infrastructure re-use in other cities, and even has 19 projects currently active in the network. |