The best public space built in this city in years…
New York Times Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff has just come down in a big way on the High Line.
Basically, he loves it.
(Please note, all images in this post are taken from the New York Times, and their slide shows. Their article and slide shows are worth visiting in their entirety, so please do so.)
I don’t want to harp on the High Line, but man, it is unique, it is an example from close by, and an example from a city at least as complicated as Montreal (if not 100 times more complicated)…and it is pretty splendid.
Ouroussoff says:
Ever since it was unveiled in 2005, the design for this park, conceived for a strip of elevated rail tracks abandoned nearly 30 years ago, has been the favorite cause of New York’s rich and powerful. Celebrities attended fund-raisers on its deck. City officials endorsed it. Developers salivated over it, knowing it would raise land values.
So I was overjoyed this weekend when I climbed the stairs at Gansevoort Street, entered the new city park and felt an immediate sense of calm…The High Line, which opened on Tuesday, is a series of low scruffy gardens, punctuated by a fountain and a few quiet lounge areas, that unfold in a lyrical narrative and seem to float above the noise and congestion below. It is one of the most thoughtful, sensitively designed public spaces built in New York in years (emphasis mine).
Wow. When was the last time such a critical perspective uttered such a sentiment about Montreal? Will the Quartier des Spectacles receive such glowing praise from those sensitive to design and place? Will the redesign of the Turcot Exchange inspire such sweet prose?
He later adds:
But what’s really unexpected about the park is the degree to which it alters your perspective on the city. Guiding you through a secret landscape of derelict buildings, narrow urban canyons and river views, it allows you to make entirely new visual connections between different parts of Manhattan while maintaining a remarkably intimate relationship with the surrounding streets.
Note that the derelict buildings and urban canyons are actually mentioned here in a positive light, whereas in Mile-End these sorts of things are to be scorned and obliterated with shiny new condo developments, and “opening up” (i.e., demolition) of its streets.
I love this line, it’s like he’s talking about the Maguire Meadow, in Mile-End:
A subtle play between contemporary and historical design, industrial decay and natural beauty sets the tone.
And, speaking of nature, he notes:
And those gardens have a wild, ragged look that echoes the character of the old abandoned track bed when it was covered with weeds, just a few years ago. Wildflowers and prairie grasses mix with Amelanchier bushes, their branches speckled with red berries. Mr. Corner designed planters to hold the taller trees, and the Gansevoort entry is marked by a cluster of birches. On Saturday the gardens were swarming with bees, butterflies and birds. I half expected to see Bambi.
Now, I am not sure if the High Line was really “swarming” with bees, butterflies and birds, but if it was that’s impressive given the concrete that surrounds this space. And, even it wasn’t swarming in any sort of technical way (ha), it is nice to note that, yes, when a bit of wildness is allowed to take root in our urban green spaces, biodiversity will make use of it.
Allowing wildness to take root means (among other things) no or very little “lawn” and restricting the mowing of any grasses to those times of year that impact least the wildlife that depends on these grasses for habitat. But I digress, maybe…
Back to the High Line, and Mr. Ouroussoff:
What saves all this from becoming a saccharine exercise in nostalgia is the sophistication with which these elements are fused together. The benches, for example, have a sleek contemporary feel; they are made of simple wood slats that lock into the deck’s concrete planks. The lighting, too, is uncommonly subtle. Most of it is embedded in the bottom of the handrails to keep the focus on the plantings and keep glare to a minimum.
And this is exactly the sort of thing we hope for Maguire Meadow, no? A blending of its wildness, and its industrial rawness, with some sophisticated design that invites us to enter and relax. A tricky sort of design that is certainly beyond the ken of the sorts of formulaic design that comes from mass produced design firms (no names will be mentioned).
We continue on our High Line promenade:
As you continue north, the narrative keeps shifting. The park tunnels through an old brick commercial building just above 13th Street; dimly lit, the cavernous space offers an escape from the heat of a sunny day or from a downpour.
Ok, that would never be allowed in Montreal, since some would surely die in the tunnel, or get scared, and so it would be impossible to allow that sort of thing. Wait, the High Line is tall right? Ya, forget it…too risky…
Farther up, a spur breaks off and dead-ends into another building, creating a more private pocket overgrown with grasses and shrubs. The most original feature is a small amphitheater that angles down from the center of the deck near 17th Street. Sitting on rows of wood benches, visitors can look through an enormous window up the length of 10th Avenue, the cars and taxis roaring out from directly beneath their feet.
Wow. That sounds incredible, doesn’t it? How did these people (the New Yorkers) get so lucky?
It is no wonder that developers are tripping over themselves to get some space along the High Line. In an age where no one would actually sacrifice valuable land to something as useless as green space, this re-imagined abandoned, industrial site is now the most desired strip in New York.
People want to be in that peace and carefully designed wildness, and condo developers want their condos right next door. I think the number I have heard is that there is about $500 million worth of new development popping up in the vicinity of the High Line, which in my mind doesn’t sound like a completely positive thing.
But even here, it seems the designers were prudent. Mr. Ouroussoff again:
None of this would matter if the architects had not struggled so hard to regulate access. It often seemed that almost every developer working in the meatpacking district, at one point or another, was begging to have an apartment building or hotel connect directly to the gardens. Yet remarkably, there are only four access points between Gansevoort and 20th Streets. This adds considerably to the park’s low-key mood, and reinforces the notion that it is a place for a quiet stroll, an escape from the trendy neighborhoods below.
Can we note that somewhere, for when Mile-Enders finally get their way and the Maguire Meadow is set aside as a valuable piece of space, and becomes the most sensitively designed public space in Montreal in decades?
Maybe we should call the designers who designed the High Line to come and help us explain to the City of Montreal and Borough of Plateau-Mont-Royal how important such spaces are. Maybe the city would actually listen to these world renowned designers?
Nicolai Ouroussof finishes his piece with this little bit of kudos:
But the care and patience with which this project was developed, both on the part of the architects and the High Line’s founders, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, is a rarity anywhere. They have given New Yorkers an invaluable and transformative gift.
Amen to that.
So…Montreal…what should we do?
