Manhattan's High Line

photo Joel Sternfeld

High hopes for the High Line

New Yorkers campaigning to turn an abandoned elevated railway into a public park feel they are now on the right track, reports David Teather

One of the undiscovered treasures of New York snakes along a 1.5-mile stretch of the West Side of Manhattan - a former elevated railway abandoned for the past 23 years.

Few New Yorkers seem even to know of the existence of the rusting but elegant iron structure. The High Line stretches from Gansevoort Street in the meat packing district and into Chelsea, terminating at the far reaches of West 34th Street. It is seven acres of open space up to 80ft-wide perched three stories high in a city where space is a premium.

Local retailers have for years tried to get the structure torn down, complaining that it leaks, is infested with pigeons and is depressing property prices. They almost succeeded in 1992 but failed to agree who would foot the bill.

The railroad, which closed in 1980, was built in the 1930s to carry freight into Manhattan's then industrial West Side, with spurs connecting into various warehouses. But the neighbourhoods that the High Line cuts through have changed in the intervening years, gentrifying and in the case of the meat packing district becoming one of the hottest parts of New York: many of the warehouses the railway fed are now luxurious apartments. Chelsea is the art hub of the city.

Attitudes to the railroad have also changed. A powerful lobby has formed to turn the stretch of land into a public park. Nature has already reclaimed the railway, providing a glimpse of what could be done.

A handsome book, Walking the High Line, by the photographer Joel Sternfeld, ably displays the potential of the track. The track is private property and is not supposed to be open to the public, although as the book shows, some enterprising souls have been tending parts of the garden.

The photographs show astonishing images of meadows, saplings and wild flowers growing over the sometimes visible tracks, banked by rarely seen views of New York's familiar buildings. They present a curiously quiet and doleful picture, as though the city has been abandoned - the elevation means no people or traffic are visible - giving a hint of what a haven it could be if turned into a park.

At a hearing this month the city council earmarked $15m (£10m) to plan and design a project to convert the railway. The plan has some powerful backers. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, unlike his predecessor Rudolph Giuliani, supports the idea, as does New York senator Hillary Clinton.

The lobby was started by a not-for-profit organisation called Friends of the High Line. They estimate it would cost up to $60m to convert the space and recently launched a competition asking designers and architects to draw up designs for the site. It attracted more than 700 entries and a selection went on display in Grand Central station last week.

Entries include a sculpture garden, an outdoor swimming pool and an amusement park featuring a big apple roller coaster. Perhaps the most appealing of all is to leave it as a wild meadow, countering the very urban environment towering over it. Whether the structure is preserved is now up to the city's transportation board, but the once far-fetched notion seems likely.

Members of the Friends organisation include actors Edward Norton and Glenn Close, playwright Edward Albee, designer Diane von Furstenberg and singer Deborah Harry.

The company that owns the railway, CSX Corporation, has made it clear it doesn't care what happens to the track, as long as it is fairly compensated.

In the past, New York could perhaps be accused of not taking enough pride in its incredible array of buildings. Penn station, which once matched Grand Central, was pulled down and replaced with a sweaty bunker underneath Madison Square Garden. The opulent Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway and West 38th Street was reduced to rubble to make way for skyscrapers. It was only the intervention of Jackie Onassis that saved Grand Central.

The High Line was originally 13 miles long, but large chunks were pulled down. That trend appears to have halted. In a city squeezed onto a small island and where real estate prices are astronomic, it is always a surprise to stumble across undeveloped land. But the High Line is a terrific example of the slightly eccentric urban beauty that New York does so well and it deserves to be preserved and opened to people living in the city looking for some precious outdoor space.

Deconstructing Shanghai

Isidro Blasco's work is all about urban space and its effect on our quotidian. Born in Spain and based in New York, Blasco, who is a trained architect, uses photography and sculpture to study Shanghai's urban sprawl.
His work can be seen at Contrasts Gallery in Shanghai until through May 7.
181 Middle Jiangxi Road, G/F
Shanghai, Shanghai 200002 China
Tel. +86 21 6323 1989
photo courtesy Contrasts Gallery

Shopping in Kabul

Waiting while the family shops in Kabul, Afghanistan










photo courtesy Reuters/Omar Sobhani

Naturally 7 in the Metro

click here
The New York septet and slightly stiff Parisians






photo courtesy of out-of-sync.com

Cities on the Edge of Chaos

In last Sunday's Observer there was a feature by Deyan Sudjic, director of London's Design Museum, on how cities are taking over the world. Sudjic studied 6 of the world's key cities over a period of two years and his findings are compiled in a new book called Endless City, published by Phaidon.
Here are a few hair-raising, or as the French would say, "décoiffant", statistics:
76% of Mexico's population live in urban areas
16m2 is the average living space in Shanghai
88% of homes in Berlin are rented
$1.3 million is the average cost of an apartment in Manhattan
19% of New Yorkers live below the poverty line
54.7 million people live in Greater Tokyo
1hr24minutes is the average daily commute in London

Clickhereto read the original article.

Lenin on the Danube

Just like the statue of Anubis which floated down the Thames on a barge last fall (see archives for October 2007) parts of a statue of Lenin to be used as a prop in a film floated under the Chain bridge which joins the cities of Buda and Pest.

photo courtesy Imre Foeldi/EPA

Mega wings for Beijing

Completed in just four years, one of the largest buildings in the world was inaugurated in Beijing today without much pomp and circumstance. Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport is a state-of-the art building designed by British architectural firm Foster + Partners, which seems to be involved in most of the new constructions opening worldwide. The massive terminal, 1.3 million square meters, mostly under one roof, is supremely important for China's 2008 Olympics, and is one of many buildings in the capital signed by Western architects.

By 2020 it is estimated that the terminal will accommodate a frightening 50 million passengers per year. Environmentalists concerned about the increase in pollution in a city where athletes competing in the 2008 Olympics will be gasping for clean air, are not impressed by the engineering firm Arup's claims that Terminal 3 is the one of the world's most environmentally sustainable airports...

photograph courtesy of Fosters + Partners

Christmas in Ipanema

Planted in the middle of the lagoon behind Ipanema, in Rio de Janeiro, this 82-metre high Christmas extravaganza arouses both delight and frustration each year. Traffic jams are inevitable as people stop to admire this tree of trees...


Photo courtesy of marginalrevolution.com 2006

Banksy goes to Bethlehem

The city of Bethlehem in the West Bank has commissioned Banksy, the elusive British graffiti artist, to paint over a dozen images on the 8m-high (26ft) concrete wall that surrounds the town.
The city's economy is highly dependent on tourists, especially during the Christmas season, but few visitors are now willing to take the time to cross the Israeli checkpoint at the security barrier.
Read about it in the Timesonline by clickinghere
photo courtesy of the Timesonline

What have politicians done for the Paris suburbs since 2005?

That's the title of an in-depth article provided by Rue89, a newish and very dynamic Parisian blog created by a group of Libération old timers among others. Clickhere for the article in French.
La Courneuve in all its glory, photo courtesy of Rue89

a picture from Delhi that speaks louder than words

London-Paris in 135 minutes

Beginning tomorrow the Eurostar should glide out of the magnificently restored St Pancras railway station in London and arrive in Paris 2 hours and 15 minutes later. Brussels can now be reached in 1 hour and 51 minutes. Too bad the SNCF has decided it has other fish to fry and is going on strike tomorrow...

Leave Tuvalu for London? Me?

This post is to point out a blog that is just the thing for procrastinators on deadline. Owen Powell, a writer, performer and director, and Alex Horne, writer and comedian, set out to prove that London is the most cosmopolitan city in the world. They began in October 2006 and finished one year later, having interviewed and recorded comments from people from 189 countries living and working in London. According to the United Nations there are 192 countries in the world so they're only missing people from these three countries: Tuvalu, Palau and the Marshall Islands.
To access the blog click here

Norwegian Rats

Norwegians will be happy to know that the basic urban rat, known as the Rattus Norvegicus, is not, actually from Norway. It is said that the rats, originally from northern China, were stowaways on Norwegian ships and emigrated to Europe in the 18th century. They also used other methods of transportation to migrate such as trains and automobiles and have even resorted to swimming; in one particular case a large contingency swam across the Volga river to Russia.
In the past week I've seen two rats. A few days ago one hurried past me as I was coming out of Marks & Spencers. Today my cat was chasing (unsuccessfully) a rat outside. For all city dwellers, encountering a rat is a normal occurrence. Who hasn't seen rats scuttling down the tracks in the New York city subway? When you take out the garbage in Rome at night there are rats lurking around the bins like derelict teenagers. In Paris a friend had strapping rats scaling the wisteria plant that grew up the wall of her building. And some of us will never, ever, forget the story of Pete, the rat and the glue trap in New York. He may write about it someday.
Norwegian rats are apparently perfectly suited to city living as a result of their "opportunistic and omnivorous behavior".
Furthermore, "to know the rat is to know its habitat, and to know the habitat of the rat is to know the city" says Robert Sullivan in his 2004 book on New York City rats, Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants.
Do you know your rat's habitat?

Losing it in Berne

The Helvetian capital temporarily lost it last week when violence broke out during a protest by left-wing groups against the right-wing Swiss People's Party campaign rally. Polls have forecast the SVP party, which has been described as "xenophobic and fascist" as winning the most votes in the upcoming parliamentary elections October 21st. The nationalist SVP's election posters show three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag over the slogan "My Home, Our Switzerland, Keep it Secure."
Police used teargas to contain the protesters who were hurling rocks and bottles. The clashes caused more than SFr100,000 ($85,000) in damage and 21 people were injured. Meanwhile football officials for the Euro 2008, which will take place in June in Switzerland and Austria, met in Zurich today and fretted about security.

I'm a rabid urban cyclist by Simon Brennan

I don’t care what Lance Armstrong may think: it is about the bike. I’m a rabid urban cyclist. Fanatical even.

I biked in Los Angeles when I lived there in the early 80s (and if there is anything more antithetical to Los Angeles culture than commuting by bike, I’d like to know what it is—though I do hear that things are now getting a little easier there for my fellow bike freaks).

I biked year-round in Minneapolis during college days. More to the point (and anyone who’s ever visited that place even briefly from mid-October through April will understand the lunacy to which I’m admitting), I did this on slush, on ice, on snow in the dead of winter—and this is serious winter, tundra winter, Moscow winter, 0-degrees-Kelvin-lungs-burn-tears-turn-to-ice-on-your-cheeks-unprotected-skin-freezes-if-exposed-to-elements-for-more-than-two-minutes winter.

And, against the wishes of most who care about my physical well-being, I bike year-round in New York City and have done so for more than 20 years. I do training rides on weekends, have been known to do numerous loops in Central Park after work—and when forced, Prospect Park in Brooklyn—and, in embracing the nut-job cyclist’s creed of always being merely two inches from catastrophe, I commute to work daily, more than 10 miles each way through the streets of Brooklyn across the bridges and through the canyons of Manhattan.

But know this: our numbers are increasing steadily and we won’t go away. So cabbies; pedestrians; bus drivers; tourists; jay-walkers of all sizes and styles; out-of-towners, limo, stretch limo, Hummer stretch limo, SUV, delivery truck, moving van and town car drivers? You’d better learn to deal. Whether we’re weekend pleasure riders, competitive racers, commuters, or messengers, we risk our lives to do what we love to do. There is a lot to contend with: bad streets, bad conditions, metal construction plates that will wipe you out in a nano-second, broken glass to blow out your tire and crash you in the street, potholes, manhole covers, pedestrians who don’t look, drivers who don’t look, insufficient and poorly designated bike lanes, double parked cars and trucks, reckless cyclists (have to admit that, too). And some of us will not make it home at the end of the day.

The brutal reality of urban biking (particularly in New York City, where, I swear every car is out to kill you), is that cyclists get hit by vehicles, cyclists crash, cyclists get injured, and cyclists die. When a car meets a bike, no matter who’s at fault, the bike always loses. Always.

I love cycling, but I have paid a price for my addiction: in over 30-odd years of riding, racing and commuting, I’ve been in seven accidents, three of which have required nice little rides to emergency rooms and not so pleasant experiences once there. Some might think this ratio passes into the law of diminishing returns. No, I say, it’s just living life in the city in a way that provides meaning for me, that helps give me definition and perspective, that provides an unrivaled sense of freedom. That helps me get through the days.

I defy you to rival the feeling of flying across the
Brooklyn Bridge in fall on a cool, misty day when tourists and pedestrians don’t venture onto it, the two towers and the web of cables above you, the buzz of your tires on the wood planks below. You glance down to the roadway and see cars stuck in traffic as you blow by them; you’re up and out of the saddle, toes down, moving fast through the middle section where the grade levels out, wind whipping past your face and channeling through your helmet, mouth slack pulling the air into your lungs. Everything in sync, leg muscles taught, chain whirring through the cogs, ripping up the road. You’re alive. Two inches from catastrophe, as always, but alive.

photo copyright screeningroom.com

Beijing metro line number 5 is up

Beijing's new 27.5 km long, 23-station metro Line 5 (Tiantongyuan North - Songjiazhuang South) began running this week to the delight of commuters resigned to heavy congestion both above and below ground.
According to Beijing News tickets for the subway line will cost only two yuan, or about 27 US cents, regardless of the distance travelled or how many times passengers transfer lines.
Just for the sake of comparison, a New York City token is $2.00, a single fare tube ticket in London is £4.00 and a single ticket in the Paris metro is 1.40 euros.

image of Beijing metro ticket courtesy of urbanrail.

Two wheelin' in Paris and London

When I moved to Paris in 1999 one of my first purchases was a bicycle. I had noticed a bicycle shop on Boulevard St. Michel near the Luxembourg gardens. Point Velo specializes in Dutch bikes and is run by two soft-mannered Sri Lankan men. I bought a forest green bicycle of the Maxwell brand. If you’ve never ridden a Dutch bicycle, at first it’s quite an adjustment. You feel very tall and regal and slightly ridiculous. Then you become addicted to the comfort of sitting up so straight, with this sturdy, decidedly un-racing-like contraption under you. It’s the perfect city bike.
Now I ride my Maxwell in London. It is much more dangerous than cycling in Paris. In Paris people drive in a consistently aggressive manner but at least you know what to expect and generally, drivers are alert and on the lookout. In London drivers are passive-aggressive. Although they will stop for pedestrians on a crosswalk, they will thunder murderously past cyclists, so close you can feel the fabric of a loose jacket touching the side of their vehicle. Cars will shoot across a lane at the last minute. Could it be in part because everyone here is from somewhere else and somewhere else they all drive on the other side of the road? The city is also incredibly Byzantine and un-organized compared to Paris—part of its charm too, but from a driver’s point of view, they could have used another Haussmann. Nevertheless Londoners do bike, perhaps more than Parisians; here are some wonky statistics: 40,000 Parisians out of 2.5 million say they use their bikes regularly. (What does regularly mean?) In London, according to a 2004 travel report, 26 million journeys a day are made in London, including people commuting. Of these, 300,000 are made by bicycle. Sounds like a lot to me….
Maybe one just notices London bikers more—they wear helmets with flashing lights on them, they wear fluorescent yellow jackets and fluorescent bands around their ankles. In a city where people are generally nicer to each other than in Paris, there isn’t much camaraderie among London bikers because they’re too busy concentrating on not getting hit by a bus. In Paris there’s a newfound camaraderie around the Velib bicycle rental points because figuring out the rental system isn’t easy at first.
When I moved to London initially I had a good thing going for bicycle repairs. My neighbors had put me on to Larry, a retiree who had become a bike doctor. He would sail over on his bike that same day, drink copious amounts of milky earl grey tea, and for a small fee repair flat tires—mainly from rose thorns and broken glass strewn outside the pubs that hadn’t yet been swept up in the morning, but also other minor bike problems. Sometimes, though, he’d go for a long time without answering messages, and then re-surface weeks later. I finally realized what everyone else knew—he regularly went on drinking binges. Now it’s been four months since I left a message and the other day we crossed paths on our bicycles at an intersection. He waved at me and gestured to show he would call promptly. I’m still waiting for him to do some work on my brakes...

EcoEDGE2: Melbourne in February book now

Given the fact that more than half the world lives in cities and that climate change is precipitous, planning and building sustainable cities is an urgent matter. EcoEDGE2 is the 6th in a series of conferences hosted by the city of Melbourne, Australia from February 14-16, 2008. Architects, urban designers and planners and landscape architects will participate in EcoEDGE2 to discuss GREEN urbanism, GREEN buildings and GREEN housing. The list of participants reads like a cast of stars. It includes Anna Tibaijuka – UN Habitat, Kenya, Michaela Brüel – European Green Cities Network, Denmark, Santha Sheela Nair – Department of Drinking Water Supply, (DDWS) India, Neville Mars – Architect, Amsterdam and Beijing, Bernard Khoury – Architect, Beirut, Gerard Evenden – Foster + Partners, Architects, UK.
Early registration ends October 31. For more information click here


Photo of Shanghai by Neville Mars

Anubis floats under London's Tower Bridge

On Monday Londoners were briefly caught off guard when a 7.6 meter gold and black statue of the Egyptian funerary god, Anubis, floated down the Thames on a cargo boat. Anubis was taken to Trafalgar Square where he will stand for three days promoting an exhibition on the treasures found in King Tutankhamon's tomb that opens in London in November.

photo by AP