underdogishere

If you want the full scoop on Manhattan's newest park, the High Line, you can start by clicking here, and remember, Google is your friend; but here's the Cliff Notes version:

As hard as it may be to believe with today's real estate prices, there was a time early in the previous century when there were stockyards, slaughterhouses, and meat packing plants in Manhattan. They were connected by a private rail line that ran up the Lower West Side, carrying carcasses and killing the occasional pedestrian in the process. In the 1930s the pedestrian count got too high, and they decided to elevate the train tracks. The trains ran until the early 1980s, when Manhattan became too precious for meat packing, and the elevated railway was abandoned. In the 1990s, it was going to be torn down, but some enterprising souls had an idea: Turn it into an elevated city park! And today it's the High Line.

The whole idea is just so cool, we had to check it out.

It was cold. Cold, cold, cold. But that didn't prevent some New Yorkers from... er, sunbathing?



The lounge chairs are actual rolling stock that can be run up and down sections of the old train tracks:



How cool is that? Here's Judi trying it out:



Here's a view of the park:



Here's a view from the park, of the Empire State Building:



Park benches:



Next up: Times Square!

Labels: Out and About, Seen, Travel