Despite, or perhaps because of, the city’s density and relative proximity to a public park, walking is an almost extinct pastime in New York City. In certain enclaves, elderly immigrants do spend their evenings strolling in pairs with hands clasped behind their backs. Transplants from more scenic U.S. states escape the city altogether for some fresh air upstate. Some fortunates walk to work. But with a metropolitan obsession with fitness and competition, most of the city’s citizens enjoy parks in an uber-active manner, be it training for marathons in Central Park or cycling faster than the adjacent car traffic along the Hudson River Park. New Yorkers not walking at a brisk pace from point A to point B—perpetually irritated with meandering tourists, dodging cars, multitasking—are usually walking their dogs.
It’s the resurgence of aimless meandering that has given the High Line — the city’s new elevated park that is gradually taking over the abandoned West Side rail line — its most immediate success. A “post-industrial instrument of leisure” is what James Corner, the principal of Field Operations, the design team lead on the project, calls the new $152 million High Line.