New York's urban oasis in the sky

An elevated park in the sky built on top of the skeleton of an old rail system? It may have sounded impossible only five years ago, but today, the eagerly awaited High Line elevated urban park officially opens for thousands of New Yorkers looking to escape the hubbub of the city below!

The High Line was originally constructed in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District in the 1930s to lift dangerous freight trains off of city streets. Abandoned in the 1980’s the High Line went into decay and disrepair and was rediscovered in popular consciousness in 2000, after acclaimed photographer Joel Sternfeld captured the beauty of the industrial relic in photos: overgrown with wildflowers — an abandoned human structure essentially reclaimed by nature in a matter of 20 years.

The City of New York was originally planning to tear down the High Line, but a group formed, called ‘Friends of the High Line’, to protect, preserve, and renovate the High Line. This eventually lead to a design competition, and the commissioning of landscape architects James Corner Field Operations and architects Diller Scodifio + Renfro to rehabilitate this abandoned space into a lush, green, elevated paradise for Manhattanites.

Video of the opening of the High Line Urban Park