Two men sit on the abandoned tracks that would become the High Line
High Line Logo

2017 PRIZE

The 13th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design recognizes the High Line as exemplar for the complex coordination of creative professionals, philanthropists, and policy makers by deeply committed community advocates.

View of the ‘Projects’ from the High Line, Iwan Baan

West Chelsea was transforming from a neighborhood of meat–packers, leather clubs, NYC counter–culture, and NYCHA housing projects into one with white collar office workers and developer speculation. A historic, elevated rail line was in the way and had to go. After countless public meetings, fundraising events, celebrity endorsements, guerrilla marketing strategies, and design competitions, Friends of the High Line slowly shifted public opinion from antipathy to enthusiasm.

The High Line is now both a nonprofit organization and a public park on the West Side of Manhattan. Through their work with communities on and off the High Line, they’re devoted to reimagining the role public spaces have in creating connected, healthy neighborhoods and cities.

Built on the same rail line, the High Line was always intended to be more than a park. You can walk through gardens, view art, experience a performance, savor delicious food, or connect with friends and neighbors-all while enjoying a unique perspective of New York City.

About the Project

The High Life


By the early 1900s, the West Side of Manhattan had become a dangerously congested industrial hub with a hectic and overlapping mixture of freight-lines, trucking-routes, and pedestrian-flows. After more than 436 people were killed and 1,500 maimed by freight trains, Tenth Avenue was dubbed “Death Avenue”, and the city responded by hiring mounted patrols, “West Side Cowboys,” to guide trains through the area. In 1908, a group of concerned citizens formed the League to End Death Avenue and lobbied the city for change. The story of Manhattan’s West Side is one of continual reinvention; cycles of redevelopment and renewal within which the High Line has played a pivotal role at various times in history. When the West Side Improvement Project was proposed in 1929, the High Line was hailed as transformational. The questions of the time were how- not if – to re-envision the West Side, and what role this rail infrastructure would play in that process. Though it was clear in the late 1920s how an infrastructural innovation like the High Line could amplify economic growth and support a more vibrant public realm for the area, by the late 1990s, this kind of creative thinking was in short supply.

A 3D rendering of buildings along the High Line under photographs of them.
Famous old chicken yard looking north from 60th Street
Famous old chicken yard looking north from 60th Street, c. 1925, Columbia University, Patrick Ciccone and Dan Fox
Old crossings of 11th Avenue through 33rd Street Yard
Old crossings of 11th Avenue through 33rd Street Yard, c. 1925, Associated Press

Even before the High Line, the Manhattan’s West Side served as New York City’s central hub for food and freight. This map from 1912, highlights the specialized markets served by freight boats and the New York Central Railroad

Old, scanned map Showing Location of Markest on the North River, May 7, 1912
Map Showing Location of Markets on the North River, May 7, 1912, City of New York Department of Docks and Ferries

The New Yorker cover from 1933 and the New York Magazine cover from 2007 tell a remarkably similar story of renewal and regeneration in which the High Line has, and continues, to play a central role.

Cover Art Illustration of a busy street with cars, horses, a train, and ships in the distance, Harry Brown, New Yorker, September 16, 1933
Cover Art, Harry Brown, New Yorker, September 16, 1933
Cover Art Illustration of the words High Line makike up a golden skyscraper for New York Magazine, May 7, 2007
Cover of New York Magazine, May 7, 2007
A green and white West Side Improvement Pamphlet from 1934

Along with the proposal for the West Side Highway, the elevated rail became the first major project of the New York City’s West Side Improvement plan.

Though impressive, the positive and negative effects of these developments have been unevenly distributed. While developers have reaped the rewards of skyrocketing property values and the broader public have gained a new open space, low- and middle-income communities have faced rising rents, increasing many times faster than in other neighborhoods in the city.

One third of the High Line passes over, and through, Hudson Yards. This development project, by square footage, is projected to be the largest private real estate development in the history of the United States.

Cover of Fortune Magazine, August, 2003
Cover of Fortune Magazine, August, 2003
Transparent 3D rendering of real estate development near the High Line: Building a New City Within a City, Nicholas Rapp, Fortune Magazine, August, 2003
Building a New City Within a City, Nicholas Rapp, Fortune Magazine, August, 2003

Dissonance


Support for High Line did not come quickly or easily, least of all from the real estate development community. Despite this irony, the High Line has generated over $5 billion in real estate investment and $1.4 billion in tax revenue for NYC over 20 years. This was in large part thanks to the visionary efforts of two private citizens working alongside photographers, benefactors, public officials, and individual citizens to save a doomed elevated railway from demolition by mayoral order and an army of developers that wanted the High Line gone.

Workers unloading meat at a meatpacking facility next to two women taking a photograph
Meatpacking facility

West Chelsea was transforming from a neighborhood of meat–packers, leather clubs, NYC counter–culture, and NYCHA housing projects into one with white collar office workers and developer speculation. The High Line was in the way and had to go. After countless public meetings, fundraising events, celebrity endorsements, guerrilla marketing strategies, and design competitions, Friends of the High Line slowly shifted public opinion from antipathy to enthusiasm. In the process, they even launched a lawsuit against one NYC administration led by Mayor Giuliani before gaining the trust and support of the next administration led by Mayor Bloomberg.

“The Wild West”, New York Magazine Cover, March 3, 1997
“The Wild West”, New York Magazine, March 3, 1997
A community input card, in large red letters reading "The High Line should be preserved, untouched, as a wilderness area. No doubt you will ruin it. So it goes."
Community Input Card, Friends of the High Line

If you were actually able to make a park on the High Line, it would be great for property values. But this will never happen; it is just too far-fetched. These people are dreamers… It’s a pipe dream.

Property Owner at the City Council’s High Line Hearing
Letter of opposition reading: "Gentlemen: Since I could not attend last night's meeting of monthly community board #4 – II want to voice my opposition against the highline – that railroad track that runs along tenth avenue – and in my neighborhood, crosses 23rd street. It should be torn down! I have recently attempted to visit a friend who lives next to the highline on West 23rd Street – and had to turn back – as it was dripping melted snow. Also pigeon droppings are a constant hazard. This railline or highline must go."
Letter of Opposition, Manhattan Community Board, April 04, 2003

Friends of the High Line moved the political reception of the High Line Park idea from negative to positive. While NYC Mayor Guiliani supported demolition, in part because of pressure from local developers, his predecessor, NYC Mayor Bloomberg, saw the High Line as an asset – a unique opportunity to transform the city. For him and other federal, state, and municipal leaders, saving the High Line went from an impossible dream to a ‘no-brainer’.

Developers and property owners aggressively lobbied for demolition of the High Line and against its transformation into a park.

New York Post article about Peter Oblet’z and his will to preserve the High Line as operational railway, New York Post, November 13, 1984
New York Post article about Peter Oblet’z and his will to preserve the High Line as operational railway, New York Post, November 13, 1984
Chelsea Property Owner’s campaign “High Line Reality”, 2002
Chelsea Property Owner’s campaign “High Line Reality”, 2002
Ground Breaking ceremonies, Spencer Tucker, Office of the mayor, April, 2006
Ground Breaking ceremonies, Spencer Tucker, Office of the mayor, April, 2006

After complex negotiations among property owners, developers, public officials, community groups, benefactors, economists, and designers, the High Line has set a new standard for trans-disciplinary and cross-sectoral coordination in the field of urban design.

The High Line is responsible for record-setting economic development, extensive cultural programming, and the highest standard of excellence in design. More recently though, the High Line has come under criticism, seen by some as an exclusive space for urban elites.

Building the High Line


In the early 20th century, construction of the High Line involved threading a modular steel construction system, built to carry heavy freight loads fourteen feet above the ground, through a dense grid of existing buildings and blocks. The challenge of the 21st century was dramatically different, but similarly radical: to adapt an historic structure into an elevated public park. The design and construction of the High Line required coordination between Friends of the High Line, James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and various levels of government led by the Bloomberg Administration, as well as the cooperation of the development community. Much like in the 1920s, what resulted was a radical vision for the future that went far beyond the known.

High Line Section, James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro
High Line Section, James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The High Line is a freestanding structure that shifts and moves — something the new design, with its incredibly tight tolerances, had to contend with. The original steel structure was dimensioned to carry freight loads, and while its structural depth was more than sufficient to carry the dead loads of a public park, it only provided, on average, eighteen inches of space in which designers had to fit planking, tree planters, soil, and mechanical, electrical, and drainage systems.

Typical High Line Buildup, James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The unique conditions of the High Line presented new challenges for the construction and engineerings firms, including not only hoisting materials thirty feet into the air but also heavy machinery.

All materials and equipment had to be lifted up and down from the structure, often with cranes. Containment tents were constructed to enclose sections of the High Line where lead paint was being sandblasted away. Several deep girders had to be cut both to incorporate new stairs and to provide visual connections to the street. This process had to be carefully analyzed to ensure the remaining structure could withstand projected crowd loads.

Construction works from above, Timothy Schenck
Construction works, Timothy Schenck
Construction works from below, Friends of the High Line
Construction Works, Friends of the High Line

Urban Imagery


Friends of the High Line were as dedicated to an inclusive public process as they were to design excellence. In 2003, they hosted an open design competition that resulted in 720 entries from thirty-six countries, mostly from students and ordinary people. Notwithstanding their differences, the strongest common thread across all design competition entries was an appreciation for the existing landscape. People loved the High Line for what it had become: an urban wild. The final design team was chosen from fifty-one entries that answered an RFP (request for proposals), asking for a multidisciplinary team. In their presentation, Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, were still arguing about the best approach for the project. They were trying to find a balance between preserving the existing wildness and creating something new. For Robert this was summed up on a quote from ‘The Leopard’: “If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”.

A collage of competition entries

First we issued an RFQ, a “request for qualifications,” asking firms to join together in teams of architects, landscape architects, planners, designers, and engineers. (…) We received fifty-one entries and narrowed those down to seven, and then we did interviews with those seven designers, to learn how they would approach the High Line. (The High Line: the inside story of New York’s park in the sky)

“The High Line Pool”, Entry for High Line Ideas competition, Nathalie Rinne, 2003
“The High Line Pool”, Entry for High Line Ideas competition, Nathalie Rinne, 2003
“The High Line Pool”, Entry for High Line Ideas competition, Nathalie Rinne, 2003
“The High Line Pool”, Entry for High Line Ideas competition, Nathalie Rinne, 2003

It can’t be a park like other parks. If it’s like other parks, we’ve failed.

Robert Hammond, Co-founder & Executive Director, Friends of the High Line
Design Competition Proposal, Zaha Hadid Architects; Balmori Associates; Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP; studioMDA, 2004
Design Competition Proposal, Zaha Hadid Architects; Balmori Associates; Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP; studioMDA, 2004
Design Competition Proposal, Steven Holl Architects; Hargreaves Associates and HNTB, 2004
Design Competition Proposal, Steven Holl Architects; Hargreaves Associates and HNTB, 2004
Design Competition Proposal, Steven Holl Architects; Hargreaves Associates and HNTB, 2004
Design Competition Proposal, Steven Holl Architects; Hargreaves Associates and HNTB, 2004
Design Competition Proposal, Steven Holl Architects; Hargreaves Associates and HNTB, 2004

Plants, Planks, & People


The High Line park was envisioned by James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Pete Oudolf as a continuous landscape – one that blurs between soft and hard surfaces. The custom planks mediate various material transitions, creating gradients between organic and building materials through a system that is flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of uses while maintaining visual continuity among cultivated, wild, intimate, and hyper-social elements. As a promenade, it is intended to be as slow, quiet, simple, and wild as possible, offering unexpected and exceptional vantages of the surrounding city. Without overly prescribing spaces, the High Line has become a platform for an infinitely wide variety of programs and uses, completely curated by Friends of the High Line.

The melancholic and unruly beauty of the derelict infrastructure was preserved by a landscape design and planting strategy that incorporated a combination of native plants and trans-plants that had colonized the High Line. This created microclimate conditions, responding to varying amounts of sun, shade, water, wind, and shelter. Capitalizing on this diversity of conditions, Piet Oudolf, the planting designer, developed a complex system by mixing dominant grasses with other plants and organizing them so that their color and form punctuate each vista in beautiful and unexpected ways.

Planting Design Drawing, Piet Oudolf

A carefully choreographed system of layering, spacing, and repetition create an apparent wilderness that changes continuously throughout the year.

Plants in January/February covered in snow
January/February, Annik LaFarge
Plants in March/April sprouting
March/April, Gigi Altarejos
Plants in May/June with much more growth
May/June, Steven N. Severinghaus
Plants in July/August in full bloom
July/August, Steven N. Severinghaus
Plants in September/October looking more autumnal
September/October, Melissa Mansur
Plants in November/December brown and dry
November/December, Gigi Altarejos

Material Palette


The hardscape materials, benches, and railings are reduced to the essentials: concrete, wood, steel, and glass. The palette is simple and consistent throughout, and its richness is achieved, not by the ostentatious use of materials, but by a flexible system of components that adapts to different uses and enhances the existing railway. The concrete with gravel is used for the planks, the wood for the seating areas, and steel and glass for the railings. The new materials are in direct dialogue with the existing industrial landscape, the signature design aesthetic of the High Line.

Big Data displaying different statistics about the High Line like number of plants, length, and water lines, Anton Egorov, High Line Magazine, Fall 2016
Big Data, Anton Egorov, High Line Magazine, Fall 2016

A Day in the Life


During the past 40 years, the West Chelsea has undergone dramatic change. While the High Line certainly dominates the present-day character of surrounding neighborhoods, it does so at the expense of many people, industries, and subcultures that had previously ‘made’ the neighborhood. Some local residents, those for whom the High Line park was intended, felt unwelcome and never showed up. Friends of the High Line responded by developing a broad range of initiatives including diversified programming, intentional community outreach, and targeted investments in surrounding neighborhoods. Today the High Line hosts a wide variety of programs—including dance parties, teen internships, and an opera. It is now visited by over 7 million people a year—31% of which come from within NYC.

Many of Chelsea mainstays from the 1970s and 80s held on until recently. Meat handlers, sex workers, and gay clubbers shared Chelsea’s streets.

Most manufacturers, many of whom were reliant on the elevated railways, left Manhattan during the economic decline in the 1970s. However, the meatpacking industry remained around 14th Street.

Sign in the window of the Empire Diner reading "The Empire Diner is closed – we thank you for 34 great years!"
Empire Diner, David J. Martin
A person talking into the passenger side window of a car
Meatpacking district, Michael Syracuse
Pamplet advertising a forum on crime in Chelsea on May 9, 1980

A richly diverse community moved into empty warehouses in Chelsea. In 1985 Florent Morellet took over the R&L Restaurant, which had opened in 1943, and renamed it Florent. The following January, a reporter from New York magazine referred to it as “New York’s hottest downtown eating spot.” The restaurant closed on 2008.

Pamphlet distributed at Meatpacking district, Florent Morellet
Pamphlet distributed at Meatpacking district, Florent Morellet
Pamphlet distributed at Meatpacking district, Florent Morellet
Pamphlet distributed at Meatpacking district, Florent Morellet

Declining industry in the 1970s left the West Side warehouses empty, the High Line abandoned, and a diverse community marginalized, much of it low-income. This made room for warehouse conversions into clubs and social spaces to support a vibrant and growing gay culture. By the 1980s, during the AIDS epidemic, the neighborhood became a center for activist efforts. Later, with the opening of Dia Center for the Arts in 1987, a gallery scene began to flourish in Chelsea. The occupation of empty warehouses and lofts by artists, priced out of SoHo, accelerated the transformation of West Chelsea to a neighborhood of galleries and lofts. By 2003, West Chelsea had become one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in Manhattan.

“Creating a more equitable High Line”, High Line Magazine, Fall 2016
“Creating a more equitable High Line”, High Line Magazine, Fall 2016

Teen Arts and Culture Council offers teens an opportunity to develop skills in cultural production and social justice, and culminates in two events exclusively for teens on the High Line that bring together more than 1,400 teens from all over New York City.

Teen Arts and Culture Council, Rowa Lee
Teen Arts and Culture Council, Rowa Lee

High Society


The High Line Art program curates and commissions world-class art projects on public space. The High Line is the only park in New York that exhibits contemporary art all year round, for free. The art objects engage with the unique structure, provoking an important dialogue with the surrounding neighborhood and the urban landscape.

The artist and graphic Paula Scher painted this High Line neighborhood map as part of 2005 series The Maps.

Map of the High Line neighborhood, Paula Scher
Map of the High Line neighborhood, Paula Scher
High Line logo, Pentagram

Before Josh and David had an office or employees, they commissioned Paula Scher for their logo.

The opening of the park coincided with the obsession with smartphones. Apps such as Flickr and Instagram reveal the public’s obsession with photographing themselves on the High Line.

official New York Flickr meetup, Markus Spiering, February 18, 2012.
Official New York Flickr meetup, Markus Spiering, February 18, 2012.

The High Line Plinth is a new landmark destination for major public art commissions in New York City located on the High Line at West 30th Street and 10th Avenue. Designed as the focal point of the Spur, the newest section of the High Line, the High Line Plinth, will designate the first space on the High Line dedicated specifically to art, featuring a rotating program of new commissions.

Section of the Spur
Section of the Spur
Spur, Friends of the High Line
Spur, Friends of the High Line
Art selected for the opening of the Plinth, Friends of the High Line
Art selected for the opening of the Plinth, Friends of the High Line
High Line Plinth, Friends of the High Line
High Line Plinth, Friends of the High Line

Credits

The 13th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design recognizes the High Line as exemplar for the complex coordination of creative professionals, philanthropists, and policy makers by deeply committed community advocates. The Green Prize also recognizes Friends of the High Line for their unwavering commitment to improving the public realm through design excellence and for their capacity to continually reinvent the High Line in ways that support more inclusive public spaces — both in New York and across the globe.

The opening of the High Line in 2009 was neither the park’s first nor final achievement. Originally conceived in the early 20th century, the elevated rail was a response to public outcry over rail–related fatalities at street level. Over time, the High Line became increasingly peripheral to New Yorkers, if they noticed it at all, seen more as a decaying behemoth, a platform for vice, and a hindrance to progress than for its potential as a transformative public asset. Nearly ten years after the first section opened, the High Line’s re–emergence as a beloved and celebrated public space not only has transformed a neighborhood, it also has influenced how we approach and understand urban design on a global scale.

The evolving nature of cities situates the practice of urban design within much longer trajectories of urbanization than can be fully expressed or understood by a singular site, agent, or process. The High Line exists simultaneously as material, infrastructural, and object–based, and immaterial, agency–driven, and processes–oriented. Its influence extends far beyond the physical, temporal, and geographical space it occupies. Projects like the High Line can come into being only through an expanded practice of design — one that interweaves politics, policy, and public process into the design of the built environment. This exhibition explores these intersections of activism and infrastructure, unpacking the social, natural, and formal design components that make the High Line an exceptional urban design project.

– Stephen Gray and Caroline Filice Smith, Co–curators

Prize Selection Committee

  • Diane Davis, Committee Chair
  • Stephen Gray
  • Jeannette Kuo
  • Paola Vigano
  • Charles Waldheim

Curation and Exhibition Design

  • Stephen Gray, Co-curator
  • Caroline Filice Smith, Co-curator
  • Forrest Jessee, Exhibition Designer
  • Dan Borelli, Director of Exhibitions
  • David Zimmerman-Stuart, Exhibitions Coordinator
  • Mariana Paisana, Research and Graphics

GSD Administration

  • Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design
  • Patricia Roberts, Executive Dean
  • Ken Stewart, Assistant Dean and Director of Communications and Public Programs
  • Paige Johnston, Manager of Public Programs

Billboard Photos

  • Iwan Baan
  • Joel Sternfeld

Exhibition Collaborators

  • Adam Ganser, Vice President for Planning and Design, Friends of the High Line
  • Anna Hippee, Planning and Design Coordinator, Friends of the High Line
  • Lisa Tziona Switkin, Senior Principal, James Corner Field Operations
  • Margaret Jankowsky, Director of Marketing and Business Development, James Corner Field Operations
  • Matthew Johnson, Principal, DS+R
  • Trevor Lamphier, DS+R