New York's High Line: Why cities want parks in the sky
Once an elevated freight railway track, New York's High Line is now an oasis for pedestrians. It has been so popular that other cities are following suit, with plans to replicate the formula in London. What is the secret of its success?
In 1980 the last freight train ran along the elevated railway line in the Lower West Side of Manhattan. Reportedly, it pulled three boxcars of frozen turkeys.
Almost 20 years later, in August 1999, local architectural enthusiasts Joshua David and Robert Hammond went along to a public meeting to discuss the future of the High Line.
Within months the two New Yorkers - variously described as total amateurs and neighbourhood nobodies - founded the
Friends of the High Line, a charity that has gone on to transform the abandoned railway line into a wildly successful new kind of public space - part-beach, part-park, and part-promenade.
Since opening in 2009, the High Line has become New York City's second most visited cultural venue, attracting some four million visitors a year. Through Mr David and Mr Hammond's work, a relic of the 1930s has become the catwalk of 21st Century New York.....(
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