High Line Blog

A Blue Bottle Coffee employee holds up roasted beans. Photo by Friends of the High Line

Holding ourselves to a higher standard is essential here at the High Line, and this commitment is reflected in the food and drink we serve on the park. This week, we headed into Brooklyn to Blue Bottle Coffee’s roastery to bring you a first look at how we source and roast our beans and train baristas to develop their coffee palates – all so we can serve a remarkably good cup of coffee to our visitors on the High Line.

In this week’s Photo of the Week, two High Line Horticulture Interns Sarah Ruiz (left) and Raquel Rosado (right) pose proudly with High Line Horticulture Educator Gahl Shottan (center) next to an edible garden they helped plant and tend at Public School 33. We’ve chosen to feature this photo to celebrate these two teens and the important contributions they’ve made to the High Line’s horticulture and the surrounding community over the two months of their internship, which just came to a close.

Sarah and Raquel graduated from the High Line’s Green Corps program in July and continued on as Horticulture Interns, working side-by-side with the park’s gardeners to help care for our plants through the rest of the summer. This season marked the second year of Green Corps – which exposes teen participants to aspects of environmental science, gardening, and what it means to work in the horticulture field – and the first season of Horticultural Internships. This new internship position uses the skills and knowledge the teens had gained in the Green Corps program as a springboard for more in-depth learning and hands-on experience.

See more photos and learn more after the jump.

In celebration of our new 18-month High Line Calendar, we’re exploring each month’s featured image to bring you more of the behind-the-scenes details.

Photographer Barry Munger captured this dreamy shot of the High Line at the Rail Yards in the summer of 2007, nearly two years before the first section of the park would open to the public. Barry has been a longtime supporter and friend of the park, often focusing his keen eye and old-school film cameras on a variety of High Line subjects.

In 2007, when this photo was taken, construction was underway on the first two sections of the High Line from Gansevoort to West 30th Streets. Section 1 of the park, running from Gansevoort to West 20th Streets, would open to the public nearly two years later, and Section 2 would open a year after that. Yet, in 2007, there was still uncertainty surrounding the High Line at the Rail Yards. It wasn’t clear whether the full vision of the High Line could be realized and this last half-mile stretch saved and transformed into public space. It would be over five years before the future of this final piece of the High Line would be secured.

The vibrant copper iris continues to bloom late into the season. Photo by Steven Severinghaus

The High Line’s planting design is inspired by the self-seeded landscape that grew up between rail tracks after the trains stopped running in the 1980s. Today, the High Line includes more than 300 species of perennials, grasses, shrubs, and trees – each chosen for their hardiness, adaptability, diversity, and seasonal variation in color and texture. Some of the species that originally grew on the High Line’s rail bed are reflected in the park landscape today.

This week we share with you one of our gardeners’ current favorites.