New York City Flashback: Views from the High Line

From Dave Brigham:

Recently this thought struck me like a runaway freight train: I visited New York City three times between 2010 and 2016 and I didn't post anything about my trips!!!

Granted, it's only in more recent years that I've become obsessive about chronicling places in Greater Boston and cities that I visit on vacation (Seattle, Chicago, Panama City). As well, I've gotten much better at editing my photos in that time. What that means is a) there aren't as many photos in this post as you might expect and b) those photos aren't always as good as I'd like them to be.

Anyway, I dug through my archives, found a bunch of useable photos, and decided to post whatever the blog equivalent of latergrams is. This is the third of four posts.

Two of the three times that my family and I vacationed in New York City earlier this century, I checked out the world-famous High Line, the "public park built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side," according to the project's web site. "Saved from demolition by neighborhood residents and the City of New York, the High Line opened in 2009 as a hybrid public space where visitors experience nature, art, and design."

I first became aware of the High Line in 2008, before it opened, during a visit to NYC with my wife and a good friend of mine and his wife. We stayed at the Hotel Chelsea and hosted some friends (and, I think, one of my wife's cousins) for drinks and snacks. Afterwards, a smaller group of us walked the city in search of a place to eat dinner. My college friend, Mark, who lives in Greenwich Village, led the way. At some point we passed an elevated railroad right-of-way, and I found myself wondering about it. It was dark, and I was hungry and we were on the move, so I didn't think too much about it. That was the High Line before it was the High Line.

The High Line really is an amazing space, one that gives you a vantage point unlike any other in New York. Honestly, it's the perfect tourist trap for someone like me: I get to walk along an abandoned railbed, where some tracks are preserved; I get to see cool old buildings, some of which have been restored, some of which haven't; I get to look down on traffic and pedestrians like I'm a bird; I get to learn about the history of the city.

I plan to walk along the High Line again whenever I visit the city next. The first time I walked on it, I started from the southern entry point in Chelsea. Here are a few shots from that walk, which was in April 2011.

Now home to Manhattan Mini Storage, this building was once a warehouse for Merchant Refrigeration Co. I love how the tracks heading toward the building were kept intact. Funny to think they used to go right through the old warehouse.

I have so much respect for the people who had the vision to turn this old freight train thruway into a public park. The route was overgrown, obviously, and the tracks were still there, so people had to figure out how to transform an eyesore into an eye-catching walking trail/performance space. And I love how the tracks were kept intact at many points along the path.

The coolest feature I saw on this initial visit was The Standard High Line hotel.

The line cuts under several buildings, providing an opportunity to get out of the rain or heat, or check out how strong the building's superstructure is. The Standard is a chain with hotels in the East Village, as well as Bangkok, Ibiza, London and other cities. Below is an entrance on West 13th Street.

I'd love to know the story behind the Airstream trailer. Perhaps someone was filming a movie.

The last picture from my first High Line tour was taken looking east on West 15th Street.

I'm a big fan of skywalks, especially old industrial ones. This pedestrian bridge connects a former Nabisco building (on the right) and Chelsea Market (another former Nabisco building) on the left.

In 2016, my wife, kids and I checked out a more northerly section of the High Line. We rode the subway and walked south on 11th Avenue, past construction for what is now known as the Hudson Yards development. Filled with hotels, apartments, stores and restaurants, Hudson Yards may be best known for Vessel, an interactive artwork that spirals upward and, unfortunately, became a popular spot for committing suicide. The attraction is currently closed.

(Hudson Yards construction.)

(More of those tracks I love.)

I love the juxtaposition of new and old architecture along the High Line.

I believe the new building is the parking garage for Soori High Line, an apartment tower "where West Chelsea meets Hudson Yards," as the high-end apartment building's web site indicates. The old building in its shadow has been restored, as you can see in the Google Map capture below.

Below is another great example of the blending of rough, old bricks with shiny new glass.

This is the rear (or backside, if you prefer) of The Emerson NYC, which is located at 500 West 25th Street in the West Chelsea neighborhood.

In closing, I'd like to show you the best thing about the High Line:

You can't beat the people-watching along this path.

Make sure to check back for the final post in this New York City flashback series, which features photos taken from the top of a double-decker tour bus.

If you missed the first two posts in this series, fear not; here are the links: "New York City Flashback: Views from the High Line" and "New York City Flashback: The Transit Museum."

New York Escape

From Joe Viger:

East 12th Street, New York City

Graffiti Week, Part VI

Here's the final installment of Graffiti Week. On a recent trip to Manhattan, Chris St. Cyr made some sharp observations about tagged, and often empty, newspaper boxes -- Ed.

The side effects of the declining print publication industry are not only out-of-work writers or editors or art directors. Another tragedy of this once vibrant medium is the neglect of the iconic publication boxes that line the streets and populate bus stops of our great cities.

They’ve become the burnt-out cars and vacant buildings of the print publication world. These empty vessels are the latest blank canvases of the Backside of America’s favorite artists -- taggers.

In the hands of these visionary artists the publication box is reinvented into a kind of box-like Christmas tree that’s been decorated with United States Postal stickers, tags, and images. So the next time you see one of these empty boxes celebrate the Backside of America and tag it!

To see the rest of the posts from Graffiti Week, check out:

Part I, which features shots taken at the snack shack on an old ski hill in Weston, MA

Part II, which features some tagged barns in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Part III, in which contributor lostlosangeles features wonderful images from L.A., New Orleans and Detroit.

Part IV features three shots by Joe Viger from the West Coast, and three by Mick Melvin from the East Coast, all of buildings that seem beyond recovery.

Part V, in which we feature shots of trains and train tracks.

This Ain't No Mudd Club

From Dave Brigham:

Thanks to my buddy Jay Kumar for pointing me toward this photo exhibit by Blondie guitarist Chris Stein of New York City's infamous, but unfortunately now-defunct, punk rock club CBGB's.

I never made it to CBGB's. I walked past the club several years ago, before it was turned into a John Varvatos shoe store, but it was the middle of the day and although I was well aware of what I was walking past, I didn't take much note of it.

Despite that, as far as I'm concerned, CBGB's should have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, because it holds a unique place in this nation. For those of you who aren't aware, the club opened in December 1973, with the goal of featuring "country, bluegrass and blues" (hence the name of the club). Rather than becoming a showcase venue for those types of music, however, the club was the place where punk bands such as The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Talking Heads and Television got their starts. Smith, in fact, closed out the club on October 16, 2006.

I could go on and on about punk rock and how much I love it, but I won't. Just check out these pics and if you don't know much about the above-mentioned bands, check out the videos below:

Undercity

From Dave Brigham:

Self-described urban historian and photographer Steve Duncan made a 28-minute documentary with filmmaker Andrew Wonder (real name: certainly not Andrew Wonder) in which they explore abandoned subway stations, forgotten sewer tunnels and the tops of bridges in New York City. Very cool -- made we wish I were younger or at least more adventurous, or had more time on my hands, or wasn't concerned about hurting myself or leaving my kids without a father.

Thanks to my buddy David Belson for tipping me off to this video.

Check out more of Duncan's exploration photos from around the globe here.

These Boots Were Made for Explorin'

From Dave Brigham:

Because their sensibility about America's rump is right in line with The Backside, the folks at Palladium Boots have almost convinced me to buy some quality French footwear. Recently, I highlighted the documentary about Detroit that the company made with Johnny Knoxville of "Jackass" fame (see October 10, 2010: Reppin' for the Motor City). Today I'm pimpin' three more of the company's short films about hidden and dilapidated parts of the country, as well as one coal mine that's been burning since 1962.

In the first doc, a pleasant young woman and her crew go in search of abandoned missile silos in Washington and Kansas that have been left for graffiti artists, amateur spelunkers, UFO researchers, and real estate prospectors, among others. Stick around 'til the end for a tour of a silo property that's been converted into a hippy haven.



In the second film, a pleasant young man takes a tour of a slew of New York City's ruins, including a power station in Yonkers, a subway tunnel in Harlem, and a grain terminal in Brooklyn.



In the third documentary, another fine, upstanding young man tours Centralia, PA, home to a labyrinth of coal mines that caught fire in 1962, and is still burning.