I’m walking through trees and brushes and yet, this is New York City.
I can hear cars honking but they are out of my sight. Cab drivers are probably driving fast under my feet, under this bridge, but I’m above, closer to the sky.
This place is wild, I can’t believe trees have grown here.
The red, yellow and orange of their leaves remind me it’s autumn. I can feel this season all around me as I’m immersed in this natural playground.
Funny enough, what was once built for trains to stay away from people, is now used by people to escape traffic. One way or another the story is very similar: people and vehicles are not as compatible as we think. Yet we depend on them. Today we want to reach our destination the fastest we can, and in this rush we don’t pay much attention to what we are losing: our inner peace, the space and time to think.
Here, in this upper level platform I feel in control of myself again: I know I can stop whenever I want, by a particular tree or plant, and just contemplate it.
If it wasn’t for Friends of the High Line this bridge wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t stand here.
This isn’t just a public park, it’s part of the history of New York.
In 1840 delivering food to lower Manhattan was done by trains on street-level tracks, but these trains created dangerous conditions for pedestrians. 10th Avenue became known as “Death Avenue.”
So in the 1920s the railroad hired men on horses to protect pedestrians: they were called the “West Side Cowboys” who patrolled 10th Avenue, waving red flags to warn of oncoming trains.
I’m picturing a man on his horse preceding a train. How bizarre! Things have certainly changed but our need to stay closer to nature hasn’t. Wilderness dominated this bridge just 20 years ago: plants and trees have grown spontaneously everywhere, making a life for themselves.
Today the park is maintained by Friends of the High Line in partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation but you can still have a sense of its wilderness by the 500 species of plants and trees stretching across the 1.45-mile-long greenway.
