Rail Trestle-Turned-Park is Model for Urban Rejuvenation
Along Tenth Avenue in midtown Man- hattan, the landscape is chocked with building projects, a marked contrast to the national commercial construction slump. But the activity is limited to the vicinity of a mile-long stretch of rail trestle called the High Line. Joshua David and Robert Hammond, co-founders of Friends of the High Line, deserve much of the credit for the boomlet. They are responsible for taking rails-to-trails to new heights by rescuing the derelict trestle from demolition. They also launched a campaign to convince the city to rezone the district to encourage development and to turn the trestle into a linear public garden, with breathtaking views of the Hudson River. It took them only 10 years.
By the time the first half mile of the $170-million High Line park opened on June 8, it had transformed the neighborhood around it, pushing up real estate values and sprouting high-profile residential buildings in what had been an underused, rundown warehouse district.