City can now negotiate to acquire northern section of High Line in order to complete 1.45-mile elevated park. On July 29, 2010, the City Council approved a proposal by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services and the Department of Parks and Recreation to acquire the remaining portion of the High Line elevated rail line and associated easements. This section, currently owned by CSX Corporation, begins at West 30th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues and runs west before turning north and terminating at West 34th Street. It also includes the “spur,” which extends east off the main structure at West 30th Street and terminates above the intersection of Tenth Avenue and West 30th Street. The easements associated with the structure generally extend below and above the High Line and include property owned by the MTA and the Convention Center Development Corporation. (read more…)

Image: Joel Sternfeld ©2000, courtesy of Friends of the High Line.

Acquisition of the High Line’s third section would allow the City to complete contiguous 1.45-mile elevated public park. On May 12, 2010, the City Planning Commission heard testimony on the Department of Citywide Administrative Services and the Department of Parks & Recreation’s proposal to acquire the northern portion of the High Line elevated rail line from CSX Corporation. This section branches out from Tenth Avenue and 30th Street — a portion referred to as the “spur” — and runs east along the perimeter of the Hudson Yards on West 30th Street before turning north up Twelfth Avenue and terminating below grade at West 34th Street. The acquisition would facilitate the transfer of ownership to the City and permit the development of the High Line’s third and final section.

The High Line is a 1.45-mile elevated steel and concrete rail line built in the 1930s to deliver meat and other goods throughout Manhattan’s lower west side. Trains stopped running along the High Line in 1980, and nearly twenty years later community activists formed Friends of the High Line in order to preserve the High Line and advocate for the construction of a publicly accessible park on the structure. (read more…)