High Line Blog

The staff of Friends of the High Line was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Clare Weiss, the Parks Department's Curator of Public Art, on January 11, 2010.  During her tenure at Parks from 2005 to 2009, Clare helped organize 128 outdoor public art exhibitions, as well as 36 exhibits at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park.  She was a charter member of the High Line's Public Art Advisory Committee, which selected the High Line's first public art installation - Spencer Finch's The River That Flows Both Ways.  Clare worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make this city cultura

New space for the 30th Street Entrance.
Photo by Patrick Cullina.

The latest on the High Line's next section: the construction team recently removed FOURTEEN TONS of steel up at 30th Street to make way for the future stairs and elevator.

When Section 2 opens, 30th Street will be the northernmost access point on the High Line, at least until the Rail Yards section is built.  The entrance is located right at "the curve", where the High Line begins its iconic sweep westward towards the Hudson River.

Like the stairs at Gansevoort Street and 14th Street, the 30th Street stairs will cut through the structure, bringing visitors face-to-face with the High Line's steel beams and rivets. Click through for a rendering.

Boot-modeling at the Tenth Avenue Square.

To help our us get through the long, cold, and sometimes wet hours on the High Line this winter, the lovely folks at Swedish company Tretorn have donated several pairs of their warm and rugged rubber boots to our Maintenance & Operations and Administrative staff. According to their web site, "Tretorn celebrates a lifestyle largely lived outside." Whether we're shoveling snow, leading tours, or simply walking the High Line for some fresh air at lunchtime, we couldn't agree more!

Ed Devlin, on his wedding day in 1950, and working at the Metropolitan Museum in 2009

We were recently lucky enough to speak with a former New York Central Railroad employee named Ed Devlin. Sixty years ago, Ed worked at the rail yards that fed onto the High Line when it was part of a working railroad. He was kind enough to share his memories from long before the park in the sky was ever known as the High Line.

ED: It was 1949, and I had just come out of the Marine Corps. I worked at New York Central from 1949 to 1953. My hours were 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM – devastating hours for a newlywed. Approximately once a week, I'd be sent over to the rail yards at 10th to 12th  Avenue in the west 70's. My job was just to look at the freight train as it went by.

I would stand there near a spotlight and do two things. I had to write down the name of each freight car – New York Central, Bangor & Maine, Pennsylvania Railroad, Santa Fe, etc. – and the number on the car, which had something like nine or ten digits. And even though the train was moving at maybe eight or nine miles an hour, it went by fast. It was tricky. I had to remember the names and numbers and write quickly.

At first I wondered why I was doing this. And then I found out that each railroad would charge the other railroads a passage fee for using their tracks. Additionally, it was important to make sure the cars were in the right order for every building scheduled for the drop. The cars' numbers related to their proper order.