Spur

Design Features

The Spur is public space made by people, for people. We listened to what people wanted when choosing features for the Spur. That means James Corner Field Operations (Project Lead), Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Planting Designer Piet Oudolf—the same design team behind the first three sections of the park—created a space for more space for public programming, restrooms, access points, food, art, and plants.

The flow of the space was designed to create moments of interactions—both between people and with the surroundings.

Coach Passage
With cathedral-like 60 ft. tall ceilings, the Coach Passage crosses through Coach’s global headquarters at 10 Hudson Yards. The passage is named in recognition of the Coach Foundation’s generous gift to the High Line’s capital campaign. Primarily a hardscape, a series of planted balconies stretch out from under the building to provide visitors views of the sky, the surrounding buildings, and the other sections of the High Line over 30th Street. The iconic rails and benches of the High Line transition visitors from the walkway to the focal point of the Spur.

Balconies
Planted balconies provide visitors unique views of the sky, surrounding buildings, and other sections of the High Line.

Threshold
Once through the Passage, visitors are greeted by two large “tilted” planters, rising like hills from the deck. These create a dramatic planted threshold into the Spur and provide a lush wall of greenery after coming through the Coach Passage or from the streets of Midtown below.

Piazza
Finally, visitors arrive to an open piazza with panoramic views up and down 10th Avenue and 30th Street. The piazza retains the existing rail tracks that once led to USPS Morgan Processing and Distribution Center, reminding visitors of the history of the structure. Thanks to a series of cascading wooden seating steps on the east and west sides of the Spur, this new section provides critical space for hosting more people at our public programs and art events.

The Spur provides a home for an open-air programming space that will expand the scope of our programs and number of attendees we’re able to welcome; new restrooms; and the Plinth, a dedicated site for monumental artworks curated by High Line Art.

The Plinth

The Plinth is the first space on the High Line solely dedicated to a rotating series of new, monumental, contemporary art commissions. Simone Leigh’s Brick House, a tribute to Black beauty, is the inaugural artwork for the Plinth.

Brick House is a 16-foot-tall bronze bust of a Black woman that stares resolutely facing down 10th Avenue. The work’s title refers to the term for a strong Black woman who stands with the strength, endurance, and integrity of a house made of bricks. Brick House is the first monumental work in Anatomy of Architecture, Leigh’s continuing series of sculptures that combine architectural forms like Batammaliba architecture from Benin and Togo, the teleuk of the Mousgoum people of Cameroon and Chad, and the restaurant Mammy’s Cupboard in Natchez, Mississippi.

Leigh’s magnificent Black female figure challenges us to think more carefully about the architecture around us, and how it reflects customs, values, priorities, and society as a whole.

Gardens

The design of the Spur gardens engages with the surrounding urban context with a “less is more” approach. The natural plantings are reminiscent of the original self-sown landscape and the rough allure of the High Line structure and rail tracks.

With a Northeastern woodland palette as inspiration, the Spur plantings comprise 8,500 perennials, 69 trees and shrubs, all new species for the park, and the largest planting beds on the High Line.

Grasses, perennials, and a mix of popular clematis and wisteria vines hang from gardens along the Coach Passage, and flowering beds in the piazza are punctuated by the theatrical changing colors of witch alder shrubs.

The giant tilted planters in the threshold contain stalwarts like hackberry, sweetgum, and black tupelo, alongside exuberant hart’s tongue fern, yellow lady’s slipper, and strawberry bush.

History

Built in the 1930s, the Spur extension connected with the United States Postal Service Morgan Processing and Distribution Center, an avenue-long behemoth of a building that still stands on 30th Street between 9th and 10th avenues. This direct connection allowed freight trains to carry mail and packages to and from the upper-floor loading docks of the building.

By the early 1980s, no more trains ran along the line and the tracks fell into disuse.

The structure remained threatened by demolition until 1999, when Joshua David and Robert Hammond began lobbying to preserve and transform the High Line under their newly formed advocacy group Friends of the High Line.

In 2005, the City declared that the first two sections of the structure would be saved. However, the fate of the High Line at the Rail Yards and the Spur remained undetermined.

In 2008, Friends of the High Line organized hundreds of people wearing red “Save the Spur” t-shirts to rally in favor of preserving the Spur.

In 2012, thanks to the vision and commitment of a dedicated community of leaders, the City acquired the Rail Yards section of the High Line and announced that this section of the structure would officially be saved.

In 2014, the first phase of the Rail Yards opens.

In 2019, the opening of the Spur, the section once most in danger of deconstruction.

Venue Rentals

The Spur and Coach Passage is available to rent for private- and public-facing events. The space is ideal for receptions, seated dinners, fashion shows, or pop-up events.

Support

Coach Passage is named in honor of the Coach Foundation

Presenting Green Sponsor

High Line Plinth Committee
Shelley Fox Aarons
Fairfax Dorn
Andrew Hall
Hermine Riegerl Heller
J. Tomilson Hill
Dorothy Lichtenstein
Donald R. Mullen, Jr.
Mario J. Palumbo, Jr.
Anonymous

The High Line thanks its staff and volunteers for their continued work, and is grateful to a dedicated group of private and civic partners and the leadership of the City of New York and NYC Parks for their ongoing commitment.

Thank you to all our supporters for making the Spur come to life.