Abandoned Railway Line Becomes Elevated Park in New York

The High Line is a mile long, garden park in New York City built on an elevated 1.45-mile section of an abandoned railway line called the West Side Line, which runs along the lower west side of Manhattan. In 1980 the last freight train ran along the elevated railway line reportedly pulling three boxcars of frozen turkeys. Almost twenty years later, in August 1999, local architectural enthusiasts Joshua David and Robert Hammond went along to a public meeting to discuss the future of the High Line. Within months the two New Yorkers, who were regarded as total amateurs and neighbourhood nobodies, founded the Friends of the High Line, a charity that has gone on to transform the abandoned railway line into a wildly successful new oasis for pedestrians.

Since opening in 2009, the High Line has become New York City's second most visited cultural venue, attracting some four million visitors a year. It has been so popular that other cities are following suit, with plans to replicate the formula in London, Chicago, Philadelphia and Rotterdam, Netherlands.