High Line Blog

Two visitors on a rainy day are surprised by Human Statue (Jessie). Photo by Oliver Rich

High Line Art's newest group exhibition, Busted, has been turning heads in the park.

Busted features commissions from nine international artists, all playing with the popular tradition of urban monuments and civic landmarks that have defined public spaces for centuries. Pieces range from the abstract and conceptual, to interpretive portraits and the hyper-realistic.

New York-based artist Frank Benson's commission, Human Statue (Jessie), features a life-like bronze statue of a woman atop a small pedestal, poised with arms gently open. Her placement in an outdoor setting like the High Line has caused many visitors to do a double-take, mistaking her for a living statue performer. Sit long enough on the Diller – von Furstenberg Sundeck and you'll surely hear someone say something like, "I've seen many street performers, but she's really good."

High Line Photographer Oliver Rich captured one such interesting interaction here, as two visitors are surprised by Jessie's presence on a rainy day.

Download a printable High Line Art map.

Photo by Tom Kletecka.

Later this season, Danya Sherman, our Director of Public Programs, Education & Community Engagement, will be moving on from Friends of the High Line to pursue a graduate degree in urban planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

Though she will stay with us through June to help transition her successor, we want to take a moment to reflect on her positive impact and share our personal experience working with her.

Follow us after the jump for photos and anecdotes from the High Line community.

Spring really is here: the 23rd Street Lawn is open. Photo by Navid Baraty.

Get ready for some serious people-watching. The 23rd Street Lawn has officially re-opened for the busy season ahead. Pack a picnic, slide on your darkest shades (better for people-watching), and head out to the High Line to enjoy the park’s one and only lawn.

Like last year, the 23rd Street Lawn will be open Wednesdays through Sundays. The grass needs to recover after entertaining guests all weekend—an average of eighty-thousand during the summer months—which makes it necessary for us to close the Lawn on Mondays and Tuesdays*. This is just one of the many challenges of maintaining such a popular green space. “It’s really hard to keep it looking good and green with so much traffic throughout the summer,” says High Line Gardener Maeve Turner. Using organic products, she’s developed a program that’s kept the Lawn healthy since its grand opening in 2011.

Stop by to enjoy the white flowers of this woodland succulent, native to the eastern United States, this time of year.

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.