Quick answer
The High Line is a 1.45-mile elevated park built on an abandoned freight railroad that ran through Chelsea. The line opened in 1934, stopped running in 1980, and was reborn as a park from 2009 to 2014, planted with some 400 species and drawing about 8 million visitors a year.
Full transcript
The railroad nobody wanted on the street
For decades, freight trains rumbled down 10th and 11th Avenues at street level, and the collisions were so frequent that the route was nicknamed Death Avenue. In 1929 the city and the New York Central Railroad began the West Side Improvement, and the elevated freight line was fully operational by 1934, carrying meat, milk, and produce above the streets. Look for the old buildings the tracks once ran straight through — the line threaded itself right through the warehouses.
The last train
Trucking eventually killed the freight line. The last train ran in 1980, and the viaduct's northern section was torn down for the Javits Center. What remained sat abandoned for years while wildflowers took over the rails. In 1999 two neighbors, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, founded Friends of the High Line to save the structure as a park. Mayor Bloomberg backed the plan in 2003, construction began in 2006, and the first section opened to the public in June 2009. Climb the stairs at Gansevoort Street and start where the story began.
A garden in the sky
The park now runs 1.45 miles from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street, planted with roughly 400 species — some 100,000 plants and trees designed by Dutch landscape architect Piet Oudolf. More sections opened in 2011 and 2014, and the park draws about 8 million visitors a year; it was inspired by the elevated park in Paris that opened in 1993. Walk its full length, from the Meatpacking District to Hudson Yards, and let the city rearrange itself below you.