HIGH LINE
(b.1942) The King of New York--and 15th-richest man in the world--rules over multiple spheres of influence: politics, media and philanthropy. The mayor has one year left in his third and supposedly final term, but no one expects him to disappear after leaving office. After a star turn navigating NYC through Hurricane Sandy, a high-profile endorsement of President Obama proved his influence extends beyond the city's borders. 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Advanced fight on obesity by pushing through ban on oversize sugary soft drinks. “Michael Bloomberg.” http://www.forbes.com/profile/m ichael-bloomberg/ Accessed December 10, 2012
(b. 1966) the speaker of the New York City Council, the first woman and first openly gay official elected to that position. Her roots were in what are widely considered progressive politics and advocacy on behalf of gay New Yorkers. She was an aide to City Councilman Thomas K. Duane, the first openly gay member of the City Council and went on to serve as executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. Ms. Quinn was elected to the Council in 1999, representing a Manhattan district that includes Chelsea and Greenwich Village. By the time she became speaker in 2006, she had established herself as a frequent ally of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on a number of issues, including supporting the mayor on his ban on smoking in most restaurants and bars. In 2011, Ms. Quinn broke with Mayor Bloomberg over how to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap, proposing $75 million in cuts to the Department of Education’s budget to take the place of some of the thousands of teacher layoffs planned by the mayor. The plan marked a shift in Ms. Quinn’s close relationship with the mayor, for which she has received criticism. “Times Topics: Christine Quin.” http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/q/christine_c_quinn/i ndex.html Accessed December 10, 2012
(b.1969) After a bruising run for mayor ended in a humiliating loss and a self-imposed retreat from the public stage, Gifford Miller—the former City Council speaker known for his battles with Mayor Michael Bloomberg—is emerging again to try his hand at another rough-and-tumble industry: real estate development. Mr. Miller is launching his first project with a longtime friend and other partners. They envision transforming a derelict section of the Bronx with 10 new "affordable" apartment buildings near the Sheridan Expressway.
focuses on development finance, the revitalization of urban communities, regional economic development, waterfront redevelopment and asset planning for institutions. John’s core skills include structuring public-private partnerships, development finance, building parklands, and creating innovative development strategies. John’s wide-ranging practice is national and international in scope ranging from New York to Cincinnati, San Antonio to London. His work focuses on large-scale urban transformations, as well as discreet real estate transactions. Since founding the New York office of HR&A in 1984, he has led to bold plans that have reshaped important waterfronts, downtown districts and neighborhoods. John has:
Bruce A. Beal, Jr. is President and a general partner of Related Companies. Mr. Beal joined Related in 1995 and is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day development process for projects across all asset classes throughout the country including acquisition, finance and construction activities. In addition, Mr. Beal oversees Related’s existing operating portfolio and the company’s affordable housing initiatives.
“Our Team - John H. Alschuler, Jr., Chairman.” http://www.hraadvisors.com/team/john-h-alschuler-jr-chairman/ Accessed December 10, 2012
“Our People - Executive Team - Bruce A. Beal, Jr.” http://www.related.com/ourcompany/executives/3/Bruce-A-Beal-Jr/
At 41 years old, Mr. Miller is no longer the ambitious preppie wunderkind who led a rebellious City Council against Mr. Bloomberg and seemed poised for political success.
In 1991, Philip Aarons formed Millennium Partners with Christopher Jeffries to develop the $275 million first-phase of the major West Side development that would become Lincoln Square. The company has completed major mixed-use developments in New York, Boston, Washington DC, San Francisco and Miami at a cost in excess of $4 billion.
“Gifford Miller’s Next Step.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303661904576454402264062770.html Accessed December 10, 2012
Mr. Aarons began his career as an associate at a major New York City law firm where he concentrated in real estate transactions and finance. In early 1978, he joined the Administration of Edward I. Koch as Assistant to the Mayor.
(b. 1960), a Democrat, elected in 2006 and was previously a member of the New York State Assembly. (He is) a likely candidate for mayor, (and) has recruited prominent national Democrats to join his 2013 campaign. Mr. Stringer has been critical of the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. But Mr. Stringer has supported the mayor’s plan to make the city more environmentally sustainable and had collaborated with him on land use and other issues. In July 2011, Mr. Stringer called for the abolition of the $49 million pot of money the City Council distributes each year to nonprofit groups, saying the process for giving out the grants had become overly political. Mr. Stringer, whose office conducted a yearlong study of the funds, said the current system had led to vast economic disparities.
In mid 1979, Mr. Aarons was named President of the NYC Public Development Corporation, a position he held through 1983. Under his leadership, the company grew to become the City's lead development agency, overseeing projects including the South Street Seaport, the Marriott Marquis Hotel, the Joyce Theatre, and the Carnegie Hall Restoration. In late 1983, Mr. Aarons moved from public service and became President of General Atlantic Realty Corporation, the real estate subsidiary of General Atlantic, a privately held investment firm. In partnership with Christopher M. Jeffries, Mr. Aarons was a pioneer in the construction of low-income housing, financed through its linkage to luxury housing, building over 1,000 units of affordable housing throughout the City. Today, Mr. Aarons is active on the numerous boards. He graduated from Columbia College in 1973, where he majored in art history and the Columbia University School of Law in 1976 where he was an Editor of the Law Review. “About Millenium Partners - Philip E. Aarons.” http://millenniumptrs.com/about-mp/ Accessed December 10, 2012
She and Bill created the Pershing Square Foundation and the William and Karen Ackman Foundation. When they married in 1994, Karen was a landscape architect at the Central Park Conservancy in New York. “The Hottest Hedge Fund Wives On Wall Street” http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-fund-wives-2010-8?op=1
Mr. Stringer, a native New Yorker, was born and raised in Washington Heights. In 2010 he and his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, refused to get married in New York because the state at that time did not allow gay couples to marry. Instead, they chose to wed in Connecticut where gay marriage had already been legalized.
Mr. Beal is a trustee for New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the Citizens Budget Commission and St. Bernard’s School. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Friends of the High Line, the Advisory Board of Harvard University’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government and REBNY’s Executive Committee, Board of Governors and Housing Committee. Mr. Beal graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Managing Director at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in the Investment Management Division. John joined the Firm in 1983 as a fixed income investment banker. In addition to serving on the Board of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, John is on the Board and Chairs the Development Committee for the Friends of the High Line in New York City. He is Co-Chair of his class for the Harvard College Fund and is on the Harvard University Committee on University Resources. John also is on the Board of the Academy of American Poetry where he chairs the Committee on the Board and serves on the Finance Committee. John graduated from Harvard College and from the Harvard Business School. “About - John Blondel.” http://www.jackierobinson.org/about/JohnBlondel.php Accessed December 10, 2012
Jim is recognized as one of New York’s premier urban problem-solving strategists. His background combines senior management roles in government, public relations, real estate, and construction management, with extensive public sector experience at senior levels of New York City government. Prior to establishing Capalino+Company he founded The Growth Strategy Group – helping senior corporate managers to refine growth strategy, manage change and increase returns – and served as COO of AJ Contracting, one of the nation’s largest minority owned contractors, increasing its revenues from $125 million to $400 million in three years. Jim’s government career began in 1972 when he joined the staff of Congressman Edward I. Koch. In 1977, he co-managed the mayoral campaign of Congressman Koch when he was elected the 105th Mayor of the City of New York. He was named Commissioner of General Services, a 2,000+ employee, $750 million agency, at the age of 28 (still, the youngest commissioner in City history). Jim managed the Mayor’s successful third term re-election, which he won by the largest margin in the City’s history. Jim holds an M.A. in Management and Urban Affairs from the New School University, and a B.A. in Political Science, cum laude, from Colgate University. He currently sits on the boards of Safe Space and Friends of the Hudson River Park. “About - Principals - James F. Capalino, Chief Executive Officer” http://www.capalino.com/james-capalino Accessed December 10, 2012
Managing Director, is head of BlackRock's Financial Institutions Group within the Global Client Group. Ms. Dickey oversees the management of the client service and business development team. Specifically, she is responsible for delivery of BlackRock service to the firm's insurance and taxable clients. Ms. Dickey also works closely on developing new relationships and products within the insurance industry. In addition, Ms. Dickey is a member of BlackRock's Leadership Committee. Prior to joining BlackRock in 1996, Ms. Dickey spent one year as a municipal bond underwriting analyst with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets. Ms. Dickey's prior experience includes working in the Business Strategy and Development Group of Christie's Fine Art Auctioneers and as a private art dealer. Ms. Dickey sits on the Photography Committee for the Whitney Museum and is an active fundraiser for The High Line development in Lower Manhattan. She earned a BA degree in political science and art history from Pitzer College in 1991, and an MBA degree in finance from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1996. “Kristen Dickey, Managing Director BlackRock” http://littlesis.org/person/92427/Kristen_Dickey Accessed December 10, 2012
senior vice president for business development in the New York office of Willis Global, a London-based insurance brokerage firm; he specializes in insuring commercial real estate and other risks. He is a trustee from 2008 to 2009 of the Wildlife Conservation Society. He graduated from the University of Georgia.
In 1999 Mr. Stringer was arrested during protests against the police killing of Amadou Diallo, and in the 1980s while calling on Exxon to cease doing business in apartheid South Africa.
“Weddings/Celebrations - Bill White and Bryan Eure” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/fashion/weddings/bill-white-bryan-eure-weddings.html Accessed December 10, 2012
He graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice
(Lisa is) an emerging New York arts philanthropist. Her husband, Philip Falcone, is the senior managing director and co-founder of Harbinger Capital Partners Funds and is ranked No. 296 on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires.
“Times Topics: Scott Stringer.” http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/s/scott_m_stringer/index.html Accessed December 10, 2012
“Times Topics: Lisa Maria Falcone.” http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/f/lisa_maria_falcone/index.html Accessed December 10, 2012
(b. ~1957)served as an Officio Member at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Inc. Serves as a Trustee at Central Park Conservancy; Director of The Big Apple Circus, Ltd.; Member of Courts of Dreams Advisory Board at Pinnacle Management Corp.; served Commissioner of New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.
is a Co-Founder of KPS Capital Partners. The KPS Funds are private equity funds with $2.6 billion of assets under management focused on constructive investing in restructurings, turnarounds, bankruptcies and other special situations. Mr. Keilin previously served on the Board of Directors of Weirton Steel Corporation and numerous KPS Fund I and KPS Fund II Portfolio Companies. Mr. Keilin was also the founding Principal of Keilin & Co. LLC, a leading investment banking firm specializing in providing advisory services in connection with financial restructuring and bankruptcy transactions. Prior to founding KPS in 1997 and co-founding Keilin & Co. in 1990, Mr. Keilin was a General Partner of Lazard Frères & Co. Mr. Keilin was formerly Chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation for the City of New York, an agency created in 1975 to deal with New York City's financial crisis. He was Chairman of the Citizens Budget Commission from 1999 to 2002. Mr. Keilin graduated from Rice University and Harvard Law School.
1
“Eugene Keilin, Co-founder Emeritus.” http://www.kpsfund.com/eugenekeilin.asp Accessed December 10, 2012
Benepe left New York City Dept. of Parks to work at the Trust for Public Land. 2
1. ”Adrian Benepe.” http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=28606397&p rivcapId=7940299&previousCapId=4224923&previousTitle=Accenture,%20Inc. Accessed December 10, 2012 2. “His Domain Transformed, Parks Chief is Leaving.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/nyregion/adrian-benepe-nycparks-chief-quits-to-join-trust-for-public-land.html?ref=adrianbenepe&_r=0 Accessed December 10, 2012
(b. 1944) Ms. Burden, who spends her leisure time walking the city, boating or birding, argues that “good design is good economic development, and I know this is true.” She unabashedly calls the administration “pro-development,” and points to the High Line, which the city says has generated $2 billion in private investment in the area and has created 12,000 jobs. “What I have tried to do, and think I have done,” she said, “is create value for these developers, every single day of my term.” ... Ms. Burden argues that gentrification is merely a pejorative term for necessary growth. “Improvement of neighborhoods — some people call it gentrification — provides more jobs, provides housing, much of it affordable, and private investment, which is tax revenue for the city,” she said. On her watch, the administration has undertaken financing 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2014, of which more than 130,000 have been built, and has created projects like Via Verde, the handsome, eco-friendly subsidized development in the South Bronx. “We are making so many more areas of the city livable,” she said. “Now, young people are moving to neighborhoods like Crown Heights that 10 years ago wouldn’t have been part of the lexicon.”
Actor.
“Catherine Marron Succeeded by Neil L. Rudenstine as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The New York Public Library.” http://www.nypl.org/press/press-release/2011/09/14/catherine-marron-succeeded-neil-l-rudenstine-chairman-board-trusteesAccessed December 10, 2012
is the Chief Investment Officer and Founder of Ranger Global Advisors, a family office focused on opportunistic value-based investing. Previously, Alex was the Co-Managing Member and Chief Investment Officer of Arrow Capital Management, LLC, a private investment firm focused on global public equities which annualized at 22.4% over an 8 year period.
Goldman Sachs managing director and head of Leveraged Finance. He will have responsibility for the bank loan and high yield bond businesses in the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Division and report to David M. Solomon, managing director and head of Credit Product “GOLDMAN SACHS HIRES DONALD R. MULLEN TO HEAD LEVERAGED FINANCE.” http://www.goldmansachs.com/media-relations/press-releases/archived/2001/2001-07-11.htmls. Accessed December 10, 2012
“Biography - Alex von Furstenberg.” http://alexvonfurstenberg.com/biography/ Accessed December 10, 2012
is responsible for Millennium Partner's commercial assets. The $2 billion real estate portfolio contains Millennium's office, retail, sports club, theater, extended-stay and parking assets throughout the country. Mr. Palumbo is also responsible for Millennium's investments in the luxury fitness business, which currently consists of six clubs operating under The Sports Club/LA brand name and managed by Millennium's Boston-based subsidiary, Millennium Partners Sports Club Management. “About Millenium Partners - Mario J. Palumbo, Jr.” http://millenniumptrs.com/about-mp/ Accessed December 10, 2012
Manhattan party planner. “A-List Parties: More Taste, Less Flash.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/ fashion/16close.html Accessed December 10, 2012
president of Rubenstein Communications - one of America’s leading strategic communications and media relations companies. Together with his father, Howard Rubenstein, Steven oversees the day-to-day operation of the agency. “Steven Rubenstein.” http://www.rubenstein.com/bio_sr .html Accessed December 10, 2012
“Amanda Burden Wants to Remake New York. She Has 19 Months Left.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/nyregion/amanda-burdenplanning-commissioner-is-remaking-new-york-city.html?pagewanted=all Accessed December 10, 2012
(b.1971) Beyond working to overhaul the City’s economy, Seth’s efforts have also included modernizing NYCEDC’s property management portfolio; overseeing $2.5 billion in capital investments ranging from basic infrastructure improvements to new parks and streetscapes across the City; and helping to negotiate and structure the City’s involvement in some of the most complex development projects in recent years, including the World Trade Center, Yankee Stadium, and Citifield. Under Seth, NYCEDC has further continued its efforts to implement several of the Administration’s most ambitious area-wide redevelopment projects, bringing new housing, infrastructure, and job opportunities to underserved neighborhoods throughout the Five Boroughs. Examples of these projects include: creation of the City’s first LEED-certified neighborhood in Willets Point, Queens; upgrades to the South Bronx Greenway to improve air quality and recreational opportunities in some of the City’s poorest neighborhoods; revitalization of the 27-acre amusement district and surrounding community in Coney Island, Brooklyn; and projects at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal and New York Container Terminal in Staten Island to help revive the City’s working waterfront. Additionally, under Seth’s leadership, the City became the first municipality in the nation to develop a selection process and make allocations under a federal stimulus program designed to spur employment and encourage development during the recent downturn.
Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of IAC in February 2005. In his capacity, he is responsible for corporate information technology, global real estate, strategic sourcing and operations, travel, events, facilities and corporate services. Mr. Stewart previously served as IAC's Vice President of Operations from March 2002 and, in the company's formative stages, as the Director of Corporate Communications and Operations, where he began in 1995. IAC’s real estate portfolio encompasses over 8.5 million square feet in 172 cities, 38 states and 15 countries. This includes IAC’s new Frank Gehry-designed headquarters in Manhattan, a project Mr. Stewart managed from conception. He also initiated IAC’s strategic sourcing program in 2003 to aggregate cross-company purchasing and assured best operational practices across all IAC’s businesses. The program has generated over $100 million in incremental savings to IAC’s businesses to date. “About IAC - Management - Jason Stewart.” http://iac.mediaroom.com/index.php?s =20&item=114 Accessed December 10, 2012
Greenhood + Company helps its Clients succeed in the Digital Age through the application of Best Practices. From top level strategy, to hands-on development, we provide business enabling solutions that drive sales and marketing. We empower Clients to "make the rubber meet the road."
An attorney by training, prior to joining NYCEDC, Seth was an associate at the law firm of Cleary Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in the Real Estate practice and a financial analyst at the Mergers & Acquisitions boutique, James D. Wolfensohn Incorporated. Seth is a graduate of Columbia College, where he majored in Ancient History, and Harvard Law School. “President - Seth W. Pinsky.” http://www.nycedc.com/about-nycedc/president Accessed December 10, 2012
New York Public Library member of the Board since 1993 and Chairman since 2004, has led the Library to record levels of user accessibility, hours of service, and digital expansion, as well as a greatly enhanced presence in communities throughout New York City. Under her watch, five new libraries were built, including the LEED-certified Bronx Library Center, and a new overarching strategy was announced, including transformation plans for the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building to become the world’s largest research and circulating library. She has overseen a $1.2 billion campaign, now underway, for “Creating the Library for the Future,” and also led an $18 million post-9/11 emergency campaign. During her tenure as Chairman, the Library’s endowment increased by almost 70 percent.
(b. 1966) No one has a résumé like Vishaan Chakrabarti, a planner who has darted between the public and private sectors: as a top executive at Related Companies; a director at the New York City Planning Commission; an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; a transportation planner for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and, most recently, as the director of Columbia University’s Center for Urban Real Estate (CURE). In March, Chakrabarti became a partner at SHoP Architects. He will retain his position at Columbia while helping steer the Manhattan firm responsible for such projects as the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn.
http://www.greenhood.com/ Accessed December 10, 2012
Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group Inc. since 1997. Mr. Stillman served as Interim Chief Operating Officer of Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group Inc. since May 2004. Mr. Stillman found Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group Inc. in 1997. He was also the President of Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group Inc. from 1977 to 1997. He developed and founded his first restaurant, T.G.I. Fridays, in 1965. In 1975, Mr. Stillman sold his interests in the concept and focused on the high-end market, founding Smith & Wollensky in 1977. Mr. Stillman has also served as a Director of Meals on Wheels USA for over 20 years.
“Newsmaker: Vishaan Chakrabarti.” http://archrecord.construction.com/news/newsmakers/2012/1204-Vishaan-chakrabarti.asp Accessed December 10, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-socarides/
attorney and former White House adviser under President Bill Clinton. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-socarides/ Accessed December 10, 2012
(b.1945) graduated from Hamilton College in 1967 and Yale School of Drama in 1972, was trained as an arts administrator. He managed the Alwin Nikolai and Murray Louis dance companies in the 1970's and, as a director of a Unesco agency, organized conferences on dance copyright issues and the social welfare of dancers. ... In 1982, he ventured onto a section of abandoned elevated rail line that had once run from the old Washington Market in lower Manhattan to Spuyten Duyvil at the northern end of the island. The line once carried freight cars loaded with produce, meat, fabrics and newsprint to wholesale markets and factories in Harlem and the West Side, but it carried its last train -- three box-cars of frozen turkeys -- in April 1980. Mr. Obletz bought a two-mile section of the line through Chelsea from Conrail for $10. He figured that for about $250,000, he could lease a locomotive and some second-hand parlor cars and carry tourists, commuters and park-and-ride visitors to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which was under construction then. To bring the line back to life, he set up the West Side Rail Line Development Foundation. But the blare of train whistles and the rumbling of locomotives were never heard. After five years in various courts, fighting the state, the city and property owners along the line who wanted the line demolished, he turned the tracks back to Conrail. “Peter E. Obletz, 50, a Lover of Old Trains, Dies.” http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/04/nyregion/peter-e-obletz-50-a-lover-of-old-trains-dies.html Accessed December 10, 2012
leads the (Ford) foundation's Education, Creativity and Free Expression program. As vice president of one of the foundation's three major programs, he guides worldwide grant making in public education reform, higher education, arts, film, media, sexuality and reproductive health and religion. He also oversees the foundation's regional programming in West Africa, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, and Middle East and North Africa. “AboutUs - Leadership - Darren Walker.” http://www.fordfoundation.org/about -us/leadership/darren-walker Accessed December 10, 2012
The
High line
is an urban structure repurposed from an elevated rail line in Manhattan. The original, street-level railway was built in 1847, the same year that Brigham Young & Co. arrived in Utah and Yerba Buena was renamed “San Francisco.” The railway transported dairy and meat along the west side of Manhattan, from the eponymous Meat Packing District to Hell’s Kitchen where said meat would be prepared, cooked, and subject to other “kitchenly” operations before feeding the masses of the island.
redundantly coincided with the street’s lesser-known name, Amsterdam Avenue— remembering the island’s European colonizers and harbingers of the infectious diseases that would ultimately decimate the former inhabitants,
the Lenape.
Contrary to the rail’s ostensibly nourishing role, the street-level locomotive resulted in enough mortalities to endow 10th Avenue with the monikre “Death Avenue,” which
Just short of a centur y later, t years la he terro t e r, t h e r ended l i n with the e would b ture wo elevatio e aband uld cont n of the inue to oned. T rail line, stand as he mod which o e of tra a weath pened in n ering, ru sportin 1934. B g food sting fla ut less t w g of sur o u l d han f i f t y b e render t c o m e obsolet o the hi e . The s ghway t truche offsp ring of N ew York planner
Robert Moses.
BARRIER
New Yorkers have an inconsistent history of destroying prized structures: Penn Station was destroyed yet they bemoaned the deconstruction of the urban eyesore that is the High Line. While the inaccessible top terrain had been given to wildflowers and seedlings, the underbelly housed barbed-wire parking compounds, the city’s pigeon population, and empty lots that expects investors. The top was overhauled, the underneath left as is.
From 14th to 32nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenue is fully inhabited. Residents include: London Terrace (the once largest apartment building in the world); a halo of churches surround London Terrace; rowhouses border the treelined streets. Between 10th and 11th is dramatically different. Beyond the rail line that cuts this block is the reused remnants of a bluecollar neighborhood. And the contrast is not recent. Between syncopated billboard, the oxidized steel beam penetrated buildings at mid-block, like a tetanus nail in a spasming neighborhood skyline. The rail line located between avenues rather than above either one seems designed the urban caverns that grow from elevated tracks. The demarcation remained until SoHo galleries migrating to Chelsea for cheaper rent; where developers once lost interest is now the sight of intense speculation.
The superstitious barrier made the reclamation of west Chelsea by the commercial art world was made possible. Its magic gladly invented pricetags that disregarded to the reality that existed just across the street, preferring those at the southern tip of the island. This sort of bridging distance harkened teleportation or social ladders.
The structure marked the boundary where the currency gene by the square-footage of their apartment no longer applied rated at wo rk an d qu an tified the res t of the island—space, congestion, and capital—los; a barri er wh ere th e log ic of t to ephemeral tre nd s, pr es tig e, legacy, or esoteric histories. If entrance into this realm is as freely and ea sil y the rusting belt, so too entrance to each galle r y Yet such a short migration warrants the su sp ici on why any distinction should or could exist between these worlds.
ac c es sible as a stroll beneath i s fre e of charge. o f
Superficially, many values are shared:
corner parks lined with wrought-iron fences are a clear aesthetic declaration. Superficially, visual arts purport aesthetics. Proximity, no less adjacency, articulated what was already on the minds of pedestrian developers:
The picturesque streets,
The barrier had to be removed.
There is plenty of literature detailing how the deconstruction of the rail line detoured into a governmentallycondoned pseudopublic space; this essay will only briefly touch on that topic. Instead, the central focus is on the bodies from which these claims are spoken and the ears through which the speech is heard. Through review and analysis of the re-iterated representation as an allegedly bottom-up, grassroots, neighborhood-activist led struggle against blind, bureaucratic governmental looting of a neighborhood treasure, this essay aims to re-frame the High Line as something else, something that may provoke a wondering of what grass-roots is, and if the ‘grassroots’ model is available to everyone or if it is inherited. That is, is ‘grassroots’ what it claims to be, or if the claim itself is biased. The starting point of this analysis arose from the suspiciously simplistic deviation of the formula that rules the rest of the island. Why could the logic of Manhattan be overcome here but fail elsewhere? Moreover, my suspicion began with a cynical doubt that that this city would go about financing such deconstruction without a) a plan b) motivation and c) a goal and like wise would go about any reconstruction without the same. It’s my conjecture that the High Line’s auspicious beginnings were instrumentalized by the same logic that compelled its deconstruction and that positioned parts b and c with a more profitable part a. I argue that the High Line isn’t grassroots activism but corporate development disguised as something else.
The first section of the High Line Park opened in 2009. According to Robert Hammond, co-founder of Friends of the High Line, it is estimated to raise “about half a billion dollars in tax revenue for the city.” This is a conservative estimate and based on a misclassification of the High Line. The High Line is predominantly referred to as a park, and like parks it should attract people, facilitate conviviality, give sanctuary from the oppressions of urbanity—such as joint-shattering concrete, harsh exposure to the sun and wind, or suffocating tail-pipe exhaust. Conservatively, a park would generate real-estate revenue from people who want to live near the park, on the verge of urban and rural realities. But the High Line shouldn’t be called a park; it fails as a park; it functions as a promenade and only by a lack of civic taxonomy does it maintain park classification. New York has no promenades. The Hudson River Greenway, a version of a promenade with nodes of park area, serves as an exercise and bicycle-commuter safe-zone away from the maniacal taxi-drivers whose last interest in preserving pedestrian life is from the possibility of the earning the borne latter’s future fares. The Greenway is a sanc-
tuary away from taxis: the bicycle lanes recently introduced on many of the avenues are mostly vacant of cyclists due to constant trespass by veering vehicles, parked delivery trucks and pedestrians whose cellular reception is apparently optimal in the street, as opposed to the twenty or so feet of sidewalk paralleling these lanes.
On Christmas Day, 2011, Mayor Bloomberg announced that for the first time in history New York City had attracted 50 million tourists in one year; in the final week another 2 million were expected. As a tourist attraction, the High Line promenade leverages the monies of tourists to artificially inflate the cost of the living in the adjacent neighborhoods. The result is a machine whereby the City can avoid the tax-breaks often given to developers or corporations in exchange for the generation of jobs. The High Line acts as a placeholder where the City can increase the value of surrounding properties and concomitant tax revenues based on the expected interest from of non-locals.
the terranean level sidewalks, it becomes clear that this attraction is really a site of another New York financial tool; one needn’t even look at the Board of Directors’ ties to Goldman Sachs to reach a less-thangrassroots conclusion. The purpose of the repurposing is clear: once a track for transporting materials is now a track for people to walk. The people have become the commodity. But does this community need a place to walk? (Half a block away is the waterfront walkway.)What is the urgency of this place? Is this only a place to walk or is it also a place not for other activities? Of the activities that are allowed here, who enjoys them?
Traditionally,
promenades lie
adjacent to public ar-
eas, such as beaches or harbors,
guaranteeing something to be seen, surveyed, moved around, or entered. ‘Prome-
nade’ conjures the French Riviera, orange-pink evenings,
seascape,
after
and breeze giving cool relief
a stagnant work-
day.
For the neighboring nuclear families of Chelsea, the path is a parent’s wet dream. The tall grass and narrow walkway as well as the slow moving dense foot-traffic work in concert to create an easily supervised bubble for the their child. The child would have to be exceptionally ambitious to penetrate the vegetation,
scale the hidden handrails, and leap to his death.
Yet an adult who has not been ambitious enough and now contemplates suicide would be deterred by the possibility that the height may be insufficient to entail an exacting death and instead result in an exponentially more depressing life of hospital beds.
At lunchtime one finds visitors scrambling for seating that is almost as scarce as tree-given shade. But it isn’t simply scarcity that dictates action and location: it is the near impossibility of veering, moving off the flowing path that has allocated which way one travels and what one sees, what is possible to do with the stark contrast between concrete and planted life. The trail turns out to be a rendition of a synthetic nature that harkens Central Park while forgetting any sense of human experience, the sublime or pleasure. And yet the popularity of this structure is testament of the even harsher surroundings.
Where entrances and exits from Central park have become hubs of commercial activity, the High Line promises an even more focused confluence by guarded precipice. Currently, there are nine points of access along the trail. Unexpectedly, one is more frequently asked how to get on top of the High Line than one is asked how to descend back to New York’s version of Planet Earth.
The t u b e ls e o h W . m is n a h c e m n o ti a c ifi tr n e g l a ti n e ss te in u q e th is promenade , s d n fu n ig re fo h it w d e n e rd u b rs e n o ti a c a v e th , s s la c the psudeo upper, e in L h ig H e h T ? C Y N , il to f o n ro ld a c is th t s id m a ll o tr s to has time t u b o h W “ , k s a t s u m e W . e c n re fe if d o n s w o h s rs u o h during business e th e il h w e m li b u s e th r fo th a p a te a c ri b fa ld u o w y c ra c the aristo n o ti a c fi ti ra g s ld o h h it w y m o n crumbling global eco r fo il fo ta a tr is s y L to le b ra compa warring minds?�
Unlike most promenades, the High Line is not on ground level. One hasn’t the freedom to dash into the sand or cast a stone into the harbor. What is readily exchanged for the exceptional view and comparable silence on the elevated promenade is the control of exits and the visitors’ direction of movement, speed, activity and, by extension, their money. Just after opening a few sanctioned stands vend to visitors, but a growing infrastructure of formal and informal economies are inevitable if not predicted. Atop, the High Line has its own charming lemonade stand with books and souvenirs; already at the end of the second section, a makeshift food court, in proper FEMA fashion of makeshift trailers and tents, solicits to the descending tired, thirsty, and hungry wayfarers. If vultures gave off the stench of hydrogenated cooking oil, the simile would be too fitting.
The areas where there is sufficient space to overtake other ambulatory masses equates to the path becoming seating. Backpacks come off and cameras come out. The hikers take out their water bottles; the in-laws adjust their fanny packs; the couples embrace. The tearless trail takes a break. It’s beautiful. And similar to spatial organiza- tion on streetlevel, if there were still public seating in the City. But not for too long: the lack of shaded areas, re-constitutes the desire and need to keep moving. With the idea of “park,” in their mind, the visitors are certain that, just beyond the bend up ahead, there will be comfort. The largest continually shaded area, beneath a building’s perpendicular extension on 17th St., lacks sufficient seating on off days. This shadow oasis, part tunnel, part cave, has the vestiges of a few trees just above the architectural canal.
Rem Koolhaas should be proud: The High Line is authoritative manifestation of a culture of congestion he describes as being the dominant logic in “Delirious New York.� Finalizing the dream of Raymond Hood, this elevated sidewalk evidences the logistics of a layered city in which the pedestrian traffic is located above the circulating automobiles below. This 2011 redefinition of the utopian ideal, ca. 1920, shows the need or desire for greenery and escape from the roving machines of displacement.
Following the logic of a culture of congestion, there are on and off times. After work and on the weekends, the High Line becomes the High Wait-in-Line, as the happily mandated crawling pace is exacerbated by the impossibility to pass, due to width restrictions on the path. Backpack-laden tourists find repose from the scolds and scoffs that New Yorkers give to their foreign walking speeds and photographing what they’ve seen in the guidebooks. What was a tiresome burden on the ground becomes a strategic exercise on the High Line. People enjoy it.
So obvious is the intended ambulatory use that basic human enjoyments like shade or a place to rest— things a park might offer—are absent here. Everything centers around walking. The movement is want of the horizontal escalators found in airports. The New Jersey-oriented sunbather chairs are in such proximity to the path that shadows of passersby fall up to the bikinied pallid breasts of those at rest. conThe crete flooring recalls sidewalks and steps. Funneled down this corridor, basic needs are nearly extorted through the awaiting consumption stands.
Like the Manifest Destiny that sent pioneers on wagon and foot into the West, later “automobiled,� are again set to foot, this time to venture north east from the cobble-stone streets of the Meat Packing district to Hell’s Kitchen.
The High Line makes an unwitting connection between billboards and English landscape architecture. Hammond explains the idea of the vistas emerged from thinking how the structure’s many billboards. Here rather than “framing advertisements, it’ll frame people and views of the city,” the High Line seeks to function like the bucolic designs of the Olmstead Brothers.
While the Olmsteads sought to draw attention to natural beauties—be it through artificial arrangement—the High Line frames urban life in the throws of development, the titan skyscrapers in the near distance.
Between 18th & 19th streets, orchestra seating rises above a glassframed view of 10th avenue.
Like all seeks to
frames, this
compartmentalize both a location and a time.
In contrast to this area’s
local history, having recently been acrime-ridden industrial wasteland,
the vista is an aggrandizement of the change that has occurred and continues to occur with the life of the High Line itself. Each taxi that drives through the aperture ushers in or out national and international tourist monies that stack along this corridor. The vista is as much a mirror of the High Line as it is i n t o t h e neighborhood’s recent present eclipsing its past.
As of 2014, the High Line is currently in an infantile state of being. Two of the three sections are open. It culminates in overlooking where the final section will manifest its destiny: Hudson Yards. At the moment we find the promenade existing in this fantastic formula: Imagined-self + mirror image reflecting in real time across a changing neighborhood. This existence is seen from every vista point along the walk. Again and again the High Line becomes the focal point where visitors can see other visitors visiting and, at the best times, see other visitors seeing other visitors who, in a perfect cycle, might be looking at the first party. And since each visitor is subject to the activities allowed in this quasi-public (but really private) space, each action reifies the purpose and intent of the rail way’s renovation.
And those which are prohibited, who would enjoy the activities? How might other things or uses come about, if not by this supposed grassroots endeavor? Who decides what activities are welcome? Who represents the interests of those governed? What voices are heard and how (or not)? What is ‘grassroots’? One Possible Answer By controlling the use of the path for walking, seeing, pausing or sitting, rather than allow the community, i.e. inhabitants of
New York City, to democratically decide its purpose, the City has perfectly packaged the desire to use this structure to non-locals who might be satisfied with a singular experience that could be checked off of their Lonely Planet guide.
Financially, its existence is self-justified. It answers a question that many modern cities face: how to raise tax revenue. But there isn’t anything inherently monetarily valuable in the place itself, or even people’s desire to be there.
The resulting tax revenue is a function of the City deciding to value the park based on the expectation that others—developers, business owners, hotels—who will try to exploit the surrounding environs, they also motivated by the illusory value deemed by the City, in an attempt to capitalize on the tourists and the fabricated imaginary available to them.
And they will.
The final stretch of the High Line is to surround the old rail yards, the largest relic of the locomotive era and the industries it supported; the final destination for the constructed above-land bridge. The rail yards exist behind a blind wall of high-rises that all but amputate the disregarded space from the island. The construction partitions that surround the exposed earth look like billboards prophesying what’s to come:
“Conceiving of the High Line as a linear mall,
with a publicly accessible transportation corridor
at the center, flanked by a series of retail uses along its length, might appeal to economic
development interests and provide a revenue stream to support the public space,
but it would compromise many of the line’s most appealing features: its
contemplative quality, its ability to
convey its history of transportation use, and its sense of a place apart
from the city as
we commonly
exp erience it. It would be
un-appealing
to the community, which values open-space that is
not over-commercialized.�
When completed,
Next Great
Neighborhood, by the creators Hudson Yards of Time Warner will be one of the Center.” largest urban develop-
ments on Manhattan island. The wooden wall of advertisements surrounding its territory touts its future: “Hudson Yards New York’s
What an example! Time Warner Center is the loci of commerce at Columbus Circle; it’s a vertical rendition of 5th Avenue and home of Per Se, the once most-expensive restau-
rant in New York, with a prix fixe tasting menu of $275.Per
Se boasts views of Columbus Circle and Central Park; one for one: views of the Hudson River and the High Line.
Who or where are the neighbors?
Hudson Yards is where New York
would have implemented its bid for the 2010 Summer Olympics. Yet even after losing the bid the investors could not be denied.
F*ck it; this is New York.
And none of this is new. It’s old. And none of it is a secret. It’s spoken. The dubious element of this “park” is how it has become a model of purportedly “grassroots,” “community organized” improvement efforts that are being exported to other cities; its representation is calcified with each presentation.
Epilogue
With the trail concluding at Hudson Yards, the biodiversity of the plant life installed throughout the promenade will contrast the homogeneity of chain luxury brands found not only there, but around the world.
The business suits pouring out of the convention center just down the street might find the stroll to the High Line to be the perfect dessert to dining on the company dime. Imagine the rom-com:
A coworker escapes the office for a holiday in New York with her family coincidentally encounter her a colleague who have conveniently covened at the convention center. Only in New York! Business and personal collide, on the High LineÂŽ .
Then the flow of 50 million other people trying to get by, bury the romance and comedy.