Oh my goodness. I just discovered this & I want to be there right now. It's been a while since I lived in NYC & not a day goes by (ok, maybe every few days) that I don't miss the amazing, exciting, buzzy uniqueness of life in New York City. There really is no place on earth like it. And reading about the High Line - a fabulously reinvented elevated garden space, created along a disused railway line running from the Meatpacking District (always an obsession of mine) to Hell's Kitchen - well, it just about brings tears to my eyes.
I passionately love the transformation of urban space into garden refuge, however manicured or wild, big or small. The mix of barren cement & triumphant plantlife, the inherent human need to return to nature despite our love of fast, modern cities. From this very blog's name & a good chunk of its content, you can see how proud I am of my own (very) small contribution toward greening up our concrete world.
As the idea of the city garden has not only become central to my life, but also a hot topic amongst my friends, the High Line has really hit home for me. It seems to me to be the ultimate community garden. OK, so maybe it's not a neighborhood veggie patch (yet) and true, my precious Sauce Box wouldn't allowed to prance around & poo in it (yet), but it is an astounding use of what once was urban decay & creating a really beautiful & unexpected reinterpretation of mother nature, elegantly elevated above Manhattan's West Side.
I could go on & on about the park's fantastic origins (a live railway line until the 1980s, the discovery by self-proclaimed "urban explorers" of rugged wildgrasses & sturdy trees popping up amongst abandoned steel tracks, the community's coming together to overrule Giuliani's demolition orders & succeeding to get millions of dollars to realize their green dreams). To me, it's just heavenly & I hope I can visit it someday soon. Imagine strolling along meandering grassy paths, amidst the concrete & steel and dirty whirl of city activity below, the sparkling view of the Hudson one way & skyscrapers all around, sipping peach berry lemonade on a New York summer's day. (A few weekends ago, they were handing out free iced coffee from Crop to Cup!)
I really think it's time for me to return to NYC. But could something as wild as this happen in Dublin?
I really think it's time for me to return to NYC. But could something as wild as this happen in Dublin?*Photos courtesy of the High Line blog & Flickr pool*
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