The High Line - A Park Transforms

I read somewhere it is psychologically beneficial 

to stand near things greater and more powerful than you yourself, 

so as to dwarf yourself (and your piddlyass bothers) by comparison. 

To do so, the writer said, released the spirit from its everyday moorings, 

and accounted for why Montanans and Sherpas, who live near daunting mountains, 

aren't much at complaining or nettlesome introspection. 

He was writing about better "uses" to be made of skyscrapers, 

and if you ask me the guy was right on the money. 

All alone now beside the humming train cars, 

I actually do feel my moorings slacken, 

and I will say it again, perhaps for the last time: 

there is mystery everywhere, 

even in a vulgar, urine-scented, suburban depot such as this. 

You have only to let yourself in for it. 

You can never know what's coming next. 

Always there is the chance it will be--miraculous to say--something you want.

~ Richard Ford, The Sportswriter

How many of people love trains and railroad tracks? How many times did you go to the tracks to pick up abandoned spikes or to smash pennies?  [All in direct disobedience to your mother or grandmother who shook a finger at you and said, "Don't go to the railroad tracks!"]

We lived near the tracks for my first 4 years of life and my grandmother's house was (and still stands) close enough to the tracks for us to climb up on her wooden fence and wave to the railroader in the caboose (kids used to do that before they did away with cabooses). Our home for the last 28 years is only a few blocks from the tracks and I still love to hear a train whistle (as I curse the blocked crossing that will make me late for a meeting or appointment).

As more and more trains disappear, old rights-of-way are being turned to other uses including hike/bike trails and parks. We now have permission to walk along these abandoned tracks. Perhaps my favorite such transformation is the High Line,*  the old West Side Elevated Line, in New York City. This deserted section of rail, once slated for demolition, has been transformed into a park. And the park is transforming the neighborhood.

After a concert "beneath" the High Line last night, we thought we should walk the entire park (all 1.45 miles - heck, that's nuthin'). I am still stunned that someone had the idea and rallied enough support to save this section of railway and turn it into a public space for art, performances, pedestrians, and - well - everyone. This would be my third visit to the park - once with DH and once with our oldest child. It is ever-changing and always fascinating.

We grabbed breakfast on the way and enjoyed a little taste of Chelsea...police directing traffic...people in the park...folks hurrying off to work.

We heard an amplified message, "Get that truck outta my crosswalk!" We looked around and found it was coming from a police officer in a Smart car.

We ate in the shadow of this statue honoring those from Chelsea who served in WWI.

Why is this Jack-in-the-box here?  His happy little face smiles and his hands are in a perpetual wave.

It was a little over half a mile to the High Line. The park itself is about twice that length. Do go to the website* and look around at the different images. The park is a chameleon - never the same twice - changing with the seasons and with the different art installations. 

This is one way up. There are more stairs and elevators allowing access for everyone. We would eventually climb up and down a total of 14 floors for the day.

Everywhere you see the signs that this park has transformed/is transforming this neighborhood. The white structure (like the foundation of a teepee) on the left is part of a work of art by Duane Linklater**

Loads of flowers still bloomed along the line, but there were few pollinators.

I love everything about the High Line. I love the way the plantings echo those found on the once abandoned tracks.

I love the crazy buildings going up all around it and the views down the side streets.

Grasses and blooms

Asters

An artwork by Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa ***  hides in the shadows and shelters mourning doves.

Here is a better view of this "bunk bed."

One of the doves.

All around are structures being refitted and some under construction.

Graffiti viewed just off the park.

There are a number of viewing spots one can step out of the main path.

This guy does not mind cantilevered viewing positions - I do.

There are two levels in some spots and trees are growing.

Timur Si-Qin, Forgiving Change, 2018 ****

Lots of political statements all over this building - on top, in every window. They wanted to send a message to the viewers in the park, and did.

We were there pretty early and found mostly tourists and a few runners. Dogs are not allowed on the High Line, but *****

Mariechen Danz, The Dig of No Body (soil sample), 2011/2018 (and me)*6

A slightly different view. I loved this work and the shadow it threw. Each part is composed of a different substance. The colorful midsection appeared to be tiny bits of trash, plastic, and such in a clear resin.

I haven't a clue what this metal sculpture is. It was installed below and is likely part of that building and not the High Line's.

Dorothy Iannone, I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door, 2018 *7  It was interesting to see how many people walked by without even a nod at the mural while others climb up to a seating area opposite to view and photograph it.

Like the rest of NYC, the High Line is also still "under construction."

I took this photo to honor all the people who make parks work - employees, volunteers, supporters and all (yes, this is for you, sister, and all the others like you).

Fall is a lovely time in the park, but I would imagine spring insanely beautiful.

Yes, the tracks are still there.

But the park is designed so that there is no tripping over the tracks or the ties.

Sable Elyse Smith, C.R.E.A.M., 2018 *8

If you look inside the window opposite the High Line you will see a woman in a room that appears to be a gallery. In the middle window is an open coffin with an ivy growing out of it.  ???

Rudbeckia blooming.

Purple and white asters

More rudbeckia (black-eyed Susans)

Building within an arm's reach.

We are coming to the end of the park, but know there are more art works ahead.

Common milkweed - as a milkweed fan this seemed to be placed here just for me.

Phyllida Barlow, prop, 2017-2018 *9  I love this work. It seemed to me an echo of the transformation of the old into the new - recycling, if you will.

We stopped at the "shop" to join the supporters of the park and pick up a T-shirt or two. [We really need another T-shirt]. The wind was gusting and here you see two workers holding the displays to keep them from blowing down/away.

One little House Sparrow nibbled away on the veg.

Remnants of old Graffiti [I'm a graffiti fan too. Shhh! Don't tell anyone.]

I knew this was one of the last works, but was not sure what it said or meant. It needs to be ON to tell.  It is chmera by Pope.L, 2018 *10

Andrea Bowers, Somos 11 Millones/We Are 11 Million (in collaboration with Movimiento Cosecha), 2018. *11

We reach the end of the park.

We hit the streets of the city once again, but not your average thoroughfares. Near the park exit we found and old one.

We left the park with its plantings, people, and art and caught a cab to our next stop.

NOTES: [All notes on the art pictured comes directly from the High Line links, but are published here for the ease of the reader https://www.thehighline.org/art/projects/agora/ ]

* https://www.thehighline.org/

** Duane Linklater (b. 1976, Moose Factory, Canada) is an Omaskêko Ininiwak artist from Moose Cree First Nation. He explores the relationship between indigenous people and museums, especially the differences in how the two value indigenous institutions and art objects. For the High Line, Linklater presents a series of towering tripods that reference the elemental structure of teepees. Linklater describes the teepee as a form of provisional, mobile architecture that is set in contrast to the bombastic development happening throughout New York and along the High Line. The title of his piece, pêyakotênaw, comes from the Cree word for family, which is formed from peyak, which means number one, combined with otenaw, the word for city or town.

*** Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa (b. 1978, Guatemala City, Guatemala) creates sculptures, videos, and performances that explore absence, presence, and the way our bodies interact with the built environment. For the High Line, Ramirez-Figueroa casts a bunk bed in aluminum, referencing the fraternity of a shared space, while also evoking a sense of loss. The fragility of the structure reflects the precariousness of childhood, and in particular, the experiences of the children in the illegal orphanages that appeared in Guatemala during the civil war from 1960–1996. Specifically, the work is influenced by the Buddhist belief that “form is emptiness; emptiness is form,” and that all things are interconnected.

**** Timur Si-Qin (b. 1984, Berlin, Germany) creates artwork that posits advertising and commercial marketing as a result and extension of biology. Across his practice, Si-Qin works to combat essentialism—whether in branding, language, or nature itself. He often builds seemingly organic environments whose underlying industrial structures can be easily seen, thus calling into question the things we take for granted as “natural” or “unnatural.” For the High Line, Si-Qin presents Forgiving Change, aluminum casts of a burned tree branch from Pepperwood Preserve, which was the site of one of the many forest fires that crossed the west coast of North America in 2017.

***** http://www.livinthehighline.com/2011/06/17/secret-dogs-on-the-high-line/

*6 Mariechen Danz (b. 1980, Dublin, Ireland) is a Berlin-based artist who researches representations of the body, investigating the way it has been given meaning in various cultures, epochs, and fields of knowledge. In her installations, performances and music, often in collaboration with other artists and musicians, the human body emerges as a contradictory structure and a scene of conflict—an utterly contaminated zone, both politically and historically. For the High Line, Danz presents a new iteration of The Dig of No Body, a sculpture that references anatomical learning models segregated into individual parts, like a life-sized soil sample in movable layers.The work evokes our changing relationship to the earth, as well as the popular contemporary name “Anthropocene,” which suggests humans’ creation of a new geological era.

*7 Dorothy Iannone For the High Line, Iannone creates a new, large-scale mural installation at 22nd St. Iannone’s mural features three colorful Statues of Liberty. Between them runs the words, “I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door,” which is the final line from Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus,” the ode to the freedom promised by immigration to America engraved on a bronze plaque mounted inside the statue at Liberty Island. Iannone’s piece was conceived before the recent months of upheaval in the United States around immigration, an already contested topic; these recent debates have raised the Statue of Liberty anew as a symbol of the openness of New York City and the United States to those seeking asylum, freedom, or simply a better life. Iannone’s vibrant Liberties bring a bit of joy to an often exhausting and demoralizing political debate.

*8 Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles, California) examines the complex language and emotional landscapes embedded in systems of surveillance and structures of constraint, and the often invisible ways in which they shape our minds and direct our bodies. For the High Line, Smith creates C.R.E.A.M. (titled after the Wu Tang Clan song), an altered replica of the Hollywood Sign that reads IRONWOODLAND—a reference both to the Ironwood State Prison and to “Hollywoodland,” the segregated real estate development that was advertised by the original sign. The piece draws attention to the contradictory nature of institutions that not only develop real estate, but prisons as well.

*9 Phyllida Barlow presents a new iteration of a sculpture presented outside the British Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, re-imagined for the High Line. Throughout her career, Barlow has constantly revisited works to reconfigure them, often in consideration of a new context. The work consists of two large concrete panels, with holes cut from their centers; set on stilts, the work appears like a character teetering among the planks at its base and emerging from the planting beds below. The sculpture stands on a railway spur at 16th Street that used to run directly into a refrigerated warehouse immediately north of Chelsea Market, formerly a Nabisco cookie factory. As with much of Barlow’s oeuvre, the work points to the area’s industrial past and how architecture, like art, is perpetually cannibalized from one generation to the next. Barlow’s work will be the first artwork ever presented on the Northern Spur Preserve, a location that allows for unique views both from the High Line and the avenue below.

*10 Pope.L (b. 1955 Newark, New Jersey) is an artist working in performance, theater, installation, video, and painting. His works include physically demanding actions, as well as sculptures and performances that explore language, gender, race, ideology, and community. For the High Line, Pope.L presents a large neon sign that reads “RiGT TURN for REPARATIONS” in flickering red and green letters. The apparent typo and backwards letters are intended to make viewers read life differently. The red and green in his apparatus suggest the jolting stop-and-go vicissitudes of progress, love, and money, either apparent or impossible.

*11  Andrea Bowers (b. 1965, Wilmington, Ohio) is a Los Angeles-based artist working in video, drawing, and installation. Her work foregrounds the struggle for gender, racial, environmental, labor, and immigration justice, and the experiences of those who are directly affected by systemic inequality. For the High Line, Bowers collaborated with the immigrant rights organization Movimiento Cosecha to identify a key message from their work supporting undocumented immigrants. The result, a large neon sign reading “Somos 11 Millones / We Are 11 Million” is a reference to the estimated number of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. today, and a tribute to their many unsung contributions to this country.