High Line Blog

The handsomest factories and warehouses around the High Line got a kiss from the city on March 18, when the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) calendered a proposal for a new industrial historic district in West Chelsea.  When the LPC calendars a proposal, it has a high chance of being approved.  The hearing is scheduled for May 13.  Read the LPC's statement about the district after the jump.

There are many people and groups who've helped make this happen, most notably New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who provided crucial leadership on this initiative, as she has done on so many other important projects in our neighborhood (including the High Line!).  State Senator Tom Duane also championed the effort, as did the Society of the Architecture of the City.  That said, the historic district was originally the brainchild of a longtime Chelsea resident and Community Board 4 member, Ed Kirkland.  Ed has been pushing for this historic district for years -- it's one of many ways this dedicated preservationist and tireless community activist has worked to ensure that the most valuable historic resources of our community are maintained.

We're excited about this district, because it joins the High Line's preservation in demonstrating the importance of preserving industrial architecture and infrastructure.  Some of the buildings in the district are among our favorites in the High Line neighborhood, including the Starrett-Lehigh Building, the New York Terminal Warehouse Company's Central Stores, and many others.

 

Other buildings in the proposed district include: the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company Freight Warehouse; the RC Williams Warehouse; the Cornell Iron Works, and the Reynolds Metal Company.

Read the LPC's statement about the district after the jump.

 

The MTA announced today that it has selected Tishman Speyer as the developer for the West Side Rail Yards. This announcement ends a 6-month bidding process, which originally involved 5 competing developers. Tishman Speyer outbid the only other remaining contender-- a joint venture between the Durst Organization and Vornado Realty Trust-- by $112 million, offering to pay $1.004 billion for the rights to develop the 26-acre site.

  Sierra Bainbridge and Maura Rockcastle at Field Operations, the landscape architecture firm leading the High Line design team, have been travelling to plant nurseries around the east coast in search of native plants for the High Line. Planting is projected to begin this spring. Sierra explains what the trips are all about:

"We're scouring native plant nurseries throughout the region, searching for many of the native trees and shrubs proposed for the High Line.  Some of the native material we have found is a little smaller than planned, which only means it will have more time to naturalize and grow into its new environment."

Our first tagging trip was on February 28, to the north fork of Long Island. There we tagged the first tree for the High Line, the Koelreuteria paniculata (Goldenrain tree) for the area around the stair entrance to the High Line at 14th street. Because the planting beds have very shallow depths, we are planting lots of smaller trees and shrubs so that they will fit and acclimatize to the conditions on the High Line as they grow. We measured a few pre-dug Koelreuteria rootballs to ensure they would fit into the shallow depths of their planting bed, but we ended up choosing trees that are still in the field. We saw a lot of other great plants that day, but we went only for the lovely Koelreuteria."