How an Abandoned Railroad Became One of NYC’s Most Popular Parks

[passersby chattering]

This elevated green space

weaves through dozens of buildings

by some of the world's most famous architects.

But none of this would exist

if it weren't for hundreds of deaths

on 10th Avenue nearly two centuries ago.

I'm Nick Potts, I'm an architect,

and today we're doing a walking tour

of the Highline in New York City.

[downbeat music]

This is the Highline Park in New York City's

Meatpacking District.

This is a neighborhood that got its name

from the industry that it once served,

which provided beef, veal, pork to markets and cities

all throughout the northeastern United States.

It also had a lot of railroad traffic

that originally was at the same level of the street,

which turned out to be quite dangerous.

Back in the 1800s, early 1900s, this area was known

as Death Avenue,

and several hundred people actually lost their lives

due to collisions with trains.

Because of this dangerous situation,

the city eventually built an elevated rail line

to permit the huge scale of industrial production

to coexist with the street level activity

of an active neighborhood within a growing metropolis.

After its decline as an industrial neighborhood

in the middle of the 20th century,

this neighborhood searched for a new identity.

The redevelopment of the Highline

from an abandoned rail line to a vibrant green space

catalyzed more development in the last 15 years

in this part of New York City than anywhere else.

It's really a unique situation

to have this concentration of contemporary buildings

designed by star architects in one area.

And without the Highline,

none of these buildings would've been built.

[downbeat music]

Behind me is the Chelsea Market.

But if we take a bit of a trip back into history,

the reason why the Highline as a rail line existed

was because of a building like this.

This was the Nabisco factory.

And so because this was an industrial district

prior to its current form,

a lot of the buildings around here would've been

similar to this,

multi-level industrial warehouse buildings

connected to the Highline

and connected the goods being made in this building

into the rail system in the country.

You can see there are these sky bridges that connect

horizontally from site to site

in these very authentic relics of its industrial past.

As the meat packing industry

and industrialized food production moved elsewhere,

this neighborhood went into decline

and relics that were left really contributed

to its decline further and further.

And it took the redevelopment of places like

the Chelsea Market and the Highline itself

to really kind of bring people back

and take what had been a bit of an urban liability

and turn it into an asset.

In terms of the redevelopment of the Chelsea Market,

it was a bit of a pioneer.

It was one of the first projects in the country

that kind of took advantage of these disused

industrial sites

and turned them into commodified marketplaces,

kind of glamorizing the grit.

Rusted steel, exposed brick,

this kind of romanticized industrial style.

And so a lot of those warehouses, buildings

kind of remade themselves into new spaces

within their existing forms,

spaces for creative industries, for film studios,

originally for art galleries.

There are people like Diane von Furstenberg,

who very early came into this neighborhood

and built a headquarters in a studio and

the sorts of things that showed up in this building.

Because it was converted into a market,

it really planted the seed for retail

within this very small footprint

of what used to be an industrial neighborhood.

[downbeat music]

Behind me is 520 West 28th Street.

This is a building designed by

British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid.

This is an example of what we would call

a designer building.

It's a phenomenon that you see pop up again and again

around the Highline.

In the 15 years since the Highline opened in 2009,

it's attracted a collection of buildings

from the most famous architects practicing in the world.

People like Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel,

Jeanne Gang, Shigeru Ban.

It's almost like a collection of designer clothes

in a fancy department store.

It's a phenomenon that's really unique in New York City,

to have this level of famous architects

working in one area,

and it's all enabled by this very famous, very public space,

the Highline, that catalyzed all of these

luxury developments.

These buildings are really about a brand

and they're about a premium product

being marketed to buyers,

both from New York and globally.

You think about a building like 520 West 28th,

which is an apartment building,

and this very public element

in this aspect of people taking pictures of your building

while you're inside of a very private,

you know, intimate space

is really engaging in this game of urban peacocking of,

you know, it's a private building that wouldn't exist

without existing on a very public right of way.

And it's showing off in a very kind of ostentatious,

you know, look-at-me sort of way,

but it's still encompassing and holding a lot of

very private spaces.

So, like a lot of designer goods,

there's almost an aspect of look-but-don't-touch with this.

None of the buildings on the Highline

can be entered from the Highline.

So you're looking, you're interacting visually,

but you're physically not permitted.

The buildings are actually separated.

None of them touch.

You don't have doors going onto the Highline.

And so the relationship that these buildings have

is purely visual.

You're looking at it as an amenity,

but you're physically not engaging with it.

[gentle music]

Behind me is the Whitney Museum of American Art.

And in terms of location,

the Whitney is also the first building a person encounters

as they enter the Highline from the south.

It's this very kind of opaque building

that doesn't really engage

with this amazing linear realm

that the Highline has created.

Really, the Whitney was trying to, you know,

add their piece as a public building,

as opposed to the private architect buildings

that the rest of the Highline has.

This is kind of your standard approach

when you're building a new museum,

is to attach a name to it.

Here it's Renzo Piano.

This is after the Chelsea Market.

This is after kind of the first phase of

kind of the retail takeover of this neighborhood happened.

But what's interesting about it is

partially how it references the industrial history

of this site.

It's almost appropriating the language of a factory,

here in a very vertical form.

You can see the vertical, aggressive,

almost industrial expression of the building,

which is a fairly interesting expression for an art museum.

The Whitney really doesn't showcase

anything about what's going inside the building.

It looks opaque, it's kind of mysterious.

The only time that you really engage with the Highline

is when you're inside the Whitney,

looking down from the balconies

or from space at the ends of the galleries

that are designed to look out over the Highline.

As the most public building on the Highline,

it's interesting to think that it's also one of

the most unapproachable and severe.

Would it have made sense to be

a little bit more public facing,

be a little bit more welcoming?

[gentle music]

Over my shoulder is Hudson Yards.

It's a 15 million square foot development

at the northern end of the Highline.

The Highline grew from south to north,

starting around 14th Street.

Here we're at 30th Street,

and by the time this was ready to be built,

it was very apparent that the West Side

could take a development of this size.

Because the Highline was so successful

in bringing people and bringing money to this area,

developers decided to go big

and to create this major commercial,

residential, and retail development

right here at the northern end of the Highline.

Here at 30th Street, this is really where

the spur of the Highline connected back

into the train network.

If you think back to the origins of this place,

everything behind me was originally

essentially a parking lot for trains,

ringed by a ramp that brought the trains

that ran on the Highline up a level

to separate them from the street grid.

At Hudson Yards, they were able to raise the ground plane

up to the level of the highline.

It's really the reconnection of the pedestrian flow

that the Highline enables

into the new shopping center,

into the new public plaza.

Where the Highline originally connected the trains

back into the the train network,

now people, essentially, have taken on that role.

Through this direct connection from the raised level

of the Highline

to the raised level of Hudson Yards.

You think about The Shed,

you think about these giant towers,

you think about the Vessel,

you think about these mega developments and this mall.

It was all really made possible

by the proving of the thesis of the Highline,

which is that these designer buildings,

these kind of mini branded moments,

can coalesce into an intense, vibrant, urban setting.

And over the last 15 years,

the success of the Highline really catalyzed

the complete redevelopment of the Meatpacking District.

The Highline has really proved itself out,

and the fact that the Meatpacking District and Hudson Yards

have been the center of development

in the largest redevelopment project in Manhattan,

it's really because of the seed that was planted

with the Highline.

For more stories about how architecture

can transform our built environment,

check out our other episodes of Walking Tour.

[downbeat music]