I’m in New York City on business and, as luck would have it, within a couple of hours of my arrival I found myself walking along the city’s newest park, the High Line–a park built on top of an old elevated train viaduct. In several places it runs through buildings. Anyway, it is very cool! Here are a few photos:
Ken,
You need to learn how to scale images (photos) BEFORE putting them up on your website.
It is considered rude to force people to download 2+MB images when a small one will do the job.
,dave
I've often thought of sections of CDOT and highway rights of way in the Denver area as being great opportunities for passive parks or more richly planted open space areas, especially around the interchanges. The area at 6th and I25 surrounding and in between the interstate ramps is massive, largely unplanted and serves no purpose. It would be great to at least plant and establish vegitation and trees there to promote a better environment.
Has anyone else noticed how 'Jerome Park' always shows up on Google Maps when you look at the area east of I-25 north of 6th? They took the old neighborhood name and labeled the area a park.
I love this. I've been reading about it on various blogs since the planning stages, and I would love to see it in person. It's good to know people are actually using it, too. What a creative use of space.
Yep. The High Line is the bomb. I was there over the weekend as well! I want the old CPV viaducts back so they can be converted to elevated fantasy grasslands with gelato stands.
Dave, the three photos I just posted are each about 200kb in size. I always downscale my images before I post them.
Ken
I love NYC architecture. Absolutely amazing what they can do here. The buildings interact on so many levels. There are open spaces and plazas on the streets surrounded by towering skyscrapers yet there are the quietest blocks just a few avenues over. Dynamic, interactive, and absolutely beautiful.
Hopefully there will be some vegetation put in with the reconstruction of s. broadway. The road was in terrible shape, but there are very few trees there!! I am just crossing my fingers that I will see some plants go in along s. broadway.
Hey Dave,
Are you frickin kidding with that comment?? Sheesh!
This is pretty cool, and the pics are sized perfectly. I wonder where else in Denver this idea would work well.
Ken,
I apologize about the size in KB.
But, you are still using HTML to scale the viewable images. When I check image properties, I get:
1600px × 1200px (scaled to 160px × 120px)
this is not the way to display images.
The photos were great and loaded very quickly. Maybe Dave is using some ancient computer or there was simply operator-error.
thanks Ken!
OMG that second photo could almost be LoDo!! enjoy new yawk!
I read about this before – the whole idea seems so cool. I'm all for creating more green spaces on roofs and elevated features downtown, because it beautifies the city but in a way that doesn't take up space that has a lot of development potential.
One thought I had, though, is that I wouldn't expect very many people to be on it in Denver, since most of Denver's parks, in general, have a pretty small person-per-acre-at-a-given-time ratio. The photos here show a lot of people walking around the viaduct, but I think it's testimony to the fact that there are so many people in New York City that any public feature will attract crowds. You always have thousands and thousands of people living within a 5-block radius in Manhattan.
I'm not suggesting that the goal of this point was to get Denver to duplicate the idea, but I think the suggestion is interesting so wanted to point out that it would be much harder to pull off here.
Let's begin with street trees and hell strip / ROW gardens. If we "green" and garden the CDOT interchanges, we encourage wildlife and slaughter of the ensuing wildlife. CDOT highway users rarely slow for anything… including animals. Start a "garden district" group. The streets of Denver could very well benefit from several garden districts throughout the urban core. Inner city street traffic moves slower, users of the streets (and sidewalks) could well benefit from green streets.
True?
Ken,
I apologize.
You are correct.
The images are 200KB.
,dave
Anon@4:23pm
I think it would be OK to green up the highway interchanges without significant animal casualties. Small animals are much more likely to get hit by cars on roads with long lulls in traffic, which is when they attempt to cross, and when a car comes they freeze up trying to see where it's going (I don't think they recognize traffic lanes) and get hit. But I haven't ever seen an animal wandering into already-busy traffic. I may be wrong about this but I'd think foxes, rabbits and prairie dogs would be unlikely to even populate the areas surrounded by highways – how would they get there?
Most likely you'd get a lot of birds, because they can fly over traffic lanes.
I actually think the I-25 interchanges are the most wasted areas downtown, and strike me as eyesores. They are mostly ugly fields, populated by weeds instead of native grasses, and the trees that are there are drought and pollution stressed. Planting a ton of trees there would require irrigation, so perhaps . I'd be open to any and all ideas for the best use of those spots.
First, Dave, in general, you are correct about the poor "etiquette." But the rules change real fast in this business, and it is now generally accepted that in blogs and other highly dynamic content (I see it on some news outlets now, too), it's alright to do this. You trade off some user convenience to get more timely, valuable information. That Ken bothers to down-size his images at all, instead of dumping them straight out of the camera, shows his concern and respect for us readers. Also, there's a much older rule of etiquette that is still valid: If you don't have something nice to say…
That being said, Thanks, Ken, this is very cool and very interesting. I can't see any direct application in Denver, not having much in the way of elevated roadways downtown, but it does get one thinking "out of the box" (to use a tired cliché) and it's always great to see what other cities are doing.
P.S. Paris, New York… when I grow up I want to be you! 🙂
Ken,
The image format works great for me! I click, I see.
Thanks!
-holygrail
I lived one block from the High Line for five years – too bad the High Line wasn't yet "The High Line," just a rusty old metal bridge with lots of pigeons living on it. Kudos to NYC for showing some creativity and realizing its full potential.
Just goes to show what a little creative urban design can do for a city. Hopefully Denver will take a hint from NYC and will get a bit more creative. Specifically, although a bit off topic, I'm thinking of what NYC did with Broadway in shutting down all those lanes of traffic to create safe bike lanes and sitting areas. We need something like that downtown – I'm tired of dodging bikes on the sidewalks, and I'm sure bikes are tired of dodging SUVs. Too bad we place the interests of suburban commuters above all else here.
BRILLIANT! innovative, beautiful, and eco-friendly! too bad all those historical buildings in denver were torn down to only leave asphalt (not parks) behind…
If anyone has a chance to stay at the Standard Hotel, seen in photo 3, I strongly recommend it. The building alone has so many unique characteristics, inside and out. The Meatpacking District is an incredible part of Manhattan that so many tourists sadly shy away from. Chelsea Market is reason enough to visit this area, but the addition of the High Line is an absolute must see. New York undoubtedly knows how to do many spectacular things—urban parks and redevelopment is whole heartedly one of them.
Paris created a linear park with a abandoned rail line years ago. It is funny that New Yorkers act like it was such a original concept.
Turning old rail lines into parks is an old concept, anon. In the US we even have a huge organization called Rails to Trails that works on nothing but that. Lots of American cities have them.
What makes this one special is that:
1) It's an elevated rail line, not a surface one.
2) It's in Manhattan, where a new park is a really big deal no matter where or how it is laid out.
The linear park in Paris that is mentioned above is built on an abandoned elevated train line.