High Line Park

The High Line is a 1.45-mile elevated public park built on a section of the West Side Line, a freight rail spur elevated above the streets of Manhattan's West Side that operated between 1934 and 1980. Threatened with demolition in the 1990s, it was preserved through neighborhood advocacy and transformed into a linear park between 2006 and 2014 in three sequential phases running from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street at Hudson Yards. The design by landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations wove the existing industrial rail infrastructure into the new park's identity: sections of original track are exposed through the plantings, concrete sleepers and steel rails are visible underfoot in places, and the park's seating and pathways are built to the same narrow width as the original rail corridor. The planting palette, designed by Dutch horticulturalist Piet Oudolf, prioritizes native grasses, wild perennials, and seasonal flowering plants that shift visually through the year — spring brings alliums and poppies; late summer, grasses and coneflowers; autumn, warm browns and persisting seed heads. Art installations rotate regularly on the High Line, with works commissioned specifically for the elevated site. Hudson Yards' The Shed art complex is accessible directly from the park's northern terminus at 34th Street. The best views of the Hudson River come from the Sundeck at 14th Street and from the 30th Street approach to Hudson Yards. Visiting on weekday mornings before 9AM allows an almost serene experience of a park that becomes busy from mid-morning onward, particularly in summer.