The Best Place in NYC

Several years ago I became obsessed with the Highline, an elevated train track on the west side of Manhattan that use to service the meatpacking district but has not been in use since 1980. There are a lot of reasons why it is one of my favorite places in NYC. I have been up there, trespassing as it is private property, several times and have taken a lot of photos. My most recent venture was in early August and I was able to get some good pictures of the construction transforming it from an abandoned railroad tracks to a fantastic park. Below is a video of how the park will be constructed.

Here are a bunch of other videos that go into detail about the history and the evolution of the Highline. Also here is a slideshow of the final design.

This post start when I saw this post on the highline blog offering a great aerial photo as desktop wallpaper. Generally, I hate wallpaper, of the wall variety and of the screen variety but this one is great and is up on my computer. I may take another venture up on the Highline next weekend and take some more pictures showing the progress of the construction. There is one thing I hope the designers do not remove and that is all the great graffiti that has built up over the years. The wall below is right below 23rd street.

Here is a large view. This photo was about 15-20 photos stitched together using a free photo stitching software so please ignore the stupid watermarks.