The Highline Part 2

You may remember me visiting the Highline back in April of 2010.  If you are a new visitor of Unseen NYC, here is a link.  We went again to check out the second part that opened a  few months ago.  It was a really nice day, not too warm, or so we thought.  In Brooklyn, it wasn't too warm, in the high 70's.  But when you go to the Highline, there is not too much shade to "escape" the sunlight.

There was not much shade, but the views were amazing.  I got some shots of New Jersey from where I was...

There are some really funky looking buildings up there too, very 1960's.

 This is a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, while still being IN the city.  Many go here for lunch, or for a break from the day just to get some sun.

These are the old train tracks:

 From my first post on March 21, 2010--


It's an old abandoned elevated subway line on the West side of Lower Manhattan. So many accidents occur between freight trains and street-level traffic that 10th Avenue becomes known as Death Avenue. For safety, men on horses, called the West Side Cowboys, ride in front of trains waving red flags.

The High Line opened to trains in 1934. It runs from 34th Street to St. John’s Park Terminal, at Spring Street. It was designed to go through the center of blocks, rather than over the avenue, to avoid creating the negative conditions associated with elevated subways. It connected directly to factories and warehouses, allowing trains to roll right inside buildings. Milk, meat, produce, and raw and manufactured goods came and went without causing street-level traffic. But in the 1950's growth of interstate trucking leads to a drop in rail traffic, both nationally and on the High Line.

The rails carried their last train in 1980 with three cars of frozen turkeys.

In 1999, Friends of the High Line is founded by Joshua David and Robert Hammond, residents of the High Line neighborhood, to advocate for the High Line's preservation and reuse as public open space.

We could even see the Empire State Building...

We spent about an hour and 1/2 there and headed down to 16th Street and got the subway home from there.