All praise: I had high expectations and it was better than I hoped. There’s been tons of coverage on this, so I’ll just make a few comments I haven’t heard elsewhere.
1) New York has become a city of promenades. We’ve always had the streets, then the parks that were developed along the river fronts, and now, triumphantly, The Highline. Raised to give a new and privileged view of the surroundings, winding its unforced way along the path of the old rail line, sectionally interesting, and lively with incident: it absorbs people without seeming crowded. The pedestrian development along Broadway from Times to Madison Square is similarly promising.
2) The plantings are truly interesting. Some are native (not that many) and many are unfamiliar. A shrub with little whorls of white flowers in racemes: I guessed it was Cyrilla, but when I got home and Iooked it up, it was not. Can anyone identify it? I’ve emailed for a plant list.
3) It will be interesting to see if the management lets the plants compete and sort out their own communities and successions. I dearly hope that is their approach, but I fear the public’s demand for prettiness and grooming may make that difficult. This is an experiment in the public’s acceptance of a new taste in planting. We may be moving away from the artifice of mown lawns, color coordinated bedding plants, and cultivars selected for purple leaves. Other things are possible: Watteau’s satin partygoers, for instance, made love in overgrown parks.
4) The Highline’s palimpsest promotes kind of archeological inquisitiveness. Old infrastructure is exposed. Old building juxtapose new. This is how New York is. Memories arise, of the piers, the Roxy, the old office, the old trannies, watching ice tick seaward on the Hudson…
5) It closes at 10. Some day it will be open all night, and that will be something.
6) But most of all, it comes off and all seems plausible and unforced. That is the hardest thing to do.
1) New York has become a city of promenades. We’ve always had the streets, then the parks that were developed along the river fronts, and now, triumphantly, The Highline. Raised to give a new and privileged view of the surroundings, winding its unforced way along the path of the old rail line, sectionally interesting, and lively with incident: it absorbs people without seeming crowded. The pedestrian development along Broadway from Times to Madison Square is similarly promising.
2) The plantings are truly interesting. Some are native (not that many) and many are unfamiliar. A shrub with little whorls of white flowers in racemes: I guessed it was Cyrilla, but when I got home and Iooked it up, it was not. Can anyone identify it? I’ve emailed for a plant list.
3) It will be interesting to see if the management lets the plants compete and sort out their own communities and successions. I dearly hope that is their approach, but I fear the public’s demand for prettiness and grooming may make that difficult. This is an experiment in the public’s acceptance of a new taste in planting. We may be moving away from the artifice of mown lawns, color coordinated bedding plants, and cultivars selected for purple leaves. Other things are possible: Watteau’s satin partygoers, for instance, made love in overgrown parks.
4) The Highline’s palimpsest promotes kind of archeological inquisitiveness. Old infrastructure is exposed. Old building juxtapose new. This is how New York is. Memories arise, of the piers, the Roxy, the old office, the old trannies, watching ice tick seaward on the Hudson…
5) It closes at 10. Some day it will be open all night, and that will be something.
6) But most of all, it comes off and all seems plausible and unforced. That is the hardest thing to do.
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