00:00This elevated green space weaves through dozens of buildings by some of the world's most
00:06famous architects, but none of this would exist if it weren't for hundreds of deaths
00:09on 10th Avenue nearly two centuries ago.
00:12I'm Nick Potts, I'm an architect, and today we're doing a walking tour of the High Line
00:15in New York City.
00:23This is the High Line Park in New York City's Meatpacking District.
00:26This is a neighborhood that got its name from the industry that it once served, which provided
00:30beef, veal, pork, to markets and cities all throughout the northeastern United States.
00:36It also had a lot of railroad traffic that originally was at the same level of the street,
00:40which turned out to be quite dangerous.
00:42Back in the 1800s, early 1900s, this area was known as Death Avenue, and several hundred
00:47people actually lost their lives due to collisions with trains.
00:52Because of this dangerous situation, the city eventually built an elevated rail line
00:57to permit the huge scale of industrial production to coexist with the street-level activity
01:03of an active neighborhood within a growing metropolis.
01:07After its decline as an industrial neighborhood in the middle of the 20th century, this neighborhood
01:13searched for a new identity.
01:14The redevelopment of the High Line from an abandoned rail line to a vibrant green space
01:19catalyzed more development in the last 15 years in this part of New York City than anywhere else.
01:25It's really a unique situation to have this concentration of contemporary buildings designed
01:30by star architects in one area, and without the High Line, none of these buildings would
01:35have been built.
01:41Behind me is the Chelsea Market.
01:43If we take a bit of a trip back into history, the reason why the High Line as a rail line
01:49existed was because of a building like this.
01:51This was an Nabisco factory.
01:53And so because this was an industrial district prior to its current form, a lot of the buildings
01:59around here would have been similar to this.
02:02Multi-level industrial warehouse buildings connected to the High Line, and connected
02:07the goods being made in this building into the rail system in the country.
02:12You can see there are these sky bridges that connect horizontally from site to site in
02:17these very authentic relics of its industrial past.
02:21As the meatpacking industry and industrialized food production moved elsewhere, this neighborhood
02:26went into decline, and relics that were left really contributed to its decline further
02:30and further.
02:31And it took the redevelopment of places like the Chelsea Market and the High Line itself
02:37to really kind of bring people back and take what had been a bit of an urban liability
02:42and turn it into an asset.
02:44In terms of the redevelopment of the Chelsea Market, it was a bit of a pioneer.
02:48It was one of the first projects in the country that kind of took advantage of these disused
02:54industrial sites and turned them into commodified marketplaces, kind of glamorizing the grit,
03:00rusted steel, exposed brick, this kind of romanticized industrial style.
03:05And so a lot of those warehouses buildings kind of remade themselves into new spaces
03:10within their existing forms, spaces for creative industries, for film studios originally,
03:16for art galleries.
03:17There are people like Diane von Furstenberg, who very early came into this neighborhood
03:21and built a headquarters and a studio.
03:23And the sorts of things that showed up in this building, because it was converted into
03:27a market, it really planted the seed for retail within this very small footprint of what used
03:31to be an industrial neighborhood.
03:38Behind me is 520 West 28th Street.
03:41This is a building designed by British Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid.
03:44This is an example of what we would call a designer building.
03:47It's a phenomenon that you see pop up again and again around the High Line.
03:51In the 15 years since the High Line opened in 2009, it's attracted a collection of buildings
03:56from the most famous architects practicing in the world.
04:00People like Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Jeanne Gang, Shigeru Ban.
04:04It's almost like a collection of designer clothes in a fancy department store.
04:10It's a phenomenon that's really unique in New York City to have this level of famous
04:15architects working in one area, and it's all enabled by this very famous, very public space,
04:22the High Line, that catalyzed all of these luxury developments.
04:26These buildings are really about a brand, and they're about a premium product being
04:31marketed to buyers both from New York and globally.
04:37You think about a building like 520 West 28th, which is an apartment building, and this very
04:41public element and this aspect of people taking pictures of your building while you're inside
04:47of a very private, intimate space is really engaging in this game of urban peacocking.
04:55It's a private building that wouldn't exist without existing on a very public right-of-way,
05:00and it's showing off in a very ostentatious, look-at-me sort of way, but it's still encompassing
05:07and holding a lot of very private spaces.
05:11Like a lot of designer goods, there's almost an aspect of look-but-don't-touch with this.
05:15None of the buildings on the High Line can be entered from the High Line.
05:20You're looking, you're interacting visually, but you're physically not permitted.
05:25The buildings are actually separated.
05:27None of them touch.
05:28There's no sign of doors going onto the High Line.
05:30So the relationship that these buildings have is purely visual.
05:34You're looking at it as an amenity, but you're physically not engaging with it.
05:44Behind me is the Whitney Museum of American Art, and in terms of location, the Whitney
05:47is also the first building a person encounters as they enter the High Line from the south.
05:52It's this very kind of opaque building that doesn't really engage with this amazing linear
06:00realm that the High Line has created.
06:02Really the Whitney was trying to, you know, add their piece as a public building as opposed
06:07to the private Stark Tech buildings that the rest of the High Line has.
06:11This is kind of your standard approach when you're building a new museum, is to attach
06:15a name to it.
06:16Here, it's Renzo Piano.
06:18This is after the Chelsea Market.
06:20This is after the first phase of the retail takeover of this neighborhood happened.
06:25But what's interesting about it is partially how it references the industrial history of
06:30this site.
06:31It's almost appropriating the language of a factory here in a very vertical form.
06:35You can see the vertical, aggressive, almost industrial expression of the building, which
06:39is a fairly interesting expression for an art museum.
06:43The Whitney really doesn't showcase anything about what's going on inside the building.
06:47It looks opaque.
06:49It's kind of mysterious.
06:50The only time that you really engage with the High Line is when you're inside the Whitney
06:54looking down from the balconies or from spaces at the ends of the galleries that are designed
06:58to look out over the High Line.
07:01As the most public building on the High Line, it's interesting to think that it's also one
07:05of the most unapproachable and severe.
07:08Would it have made sense to be a little bit more public-facing, be a little bit more welcoming?
07:13Over my shoulder is Hudson Yards.
07:19It's a 15 million square foot development at the northern end of the High Line.
07:23The High Line grew from south to north, starting around 14th Street.
07:27Here we're at 30th Street.
07:29And by the time this was ready to be built, it was very apparent that the west side could
07:34take a development of this size.
07:37Because the High Line was so successful in bringing people and bringing money to this
07:42area, developers decided to go big and to create this major commercial, residential,
07:49and retail development right here at the northern end of the High Line.
07:53Here at 30th Street, this is really where the spur of the High Line connected back into
07:59the train network.
08:00If you think back to the origins of this place, everything behind me was originally essentially
08:05a parking lot for trains ringed by a ramp that brought the trains that ran on the High
08:10Line up a level to separate them from the street grid.
08:13At Hudson Yards, they were able to raise the ground plane up to the level of the High Line.
08:18It's really the reconnection of the pedestrian flow that the High Line enables into the new
08:24shopping center, into the new public plaza, where the High Line originally connected the
08:29trains back into the train network.
08:31Now people essentially have taken on that role through this direct connection from the
08:36raised level of the High Line to the raised level of Hudson Yards.
08:40You think about the shed, you think about these giant towers, you think about the vessel,
08:44you think about these mega developments and this mall, it was all really made possible
08:48by the proving of the thesis of the High Line, which is that these designer buildings, these
08:55kind of mini-branded moments can coalesce into an intense, vibrant urban setting.
09:04And over the last 15 years, the success of the High Line really catalyzed the complete
09:08redevelopment of the Meatpacking District.
09:10The High Line has really proved itself out, and the fact that the Meatpacking District
09:15and Hudson Yards have been the center of development and the largest redevelopment project in Manhattan,
09:22it's really because of the seed that was planted with the High Line.
09:26For more stories about how architecture can transform our built environment, check out
09:30our other episodes of Walk & Tour.
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