Climb the stairs from the street and you are walking among wild grasses and flowers, two storeys above the traffic. The city opens up between the buildings: the Hudson on one side, the skyline on the other.

From railway to park

The High Line is a 1.45-mile (2.33 km) elevated linear park built on an abandoned southern section of the New York Central Railroad's West Side Line. As rail traffic declined, the viaduct was effectively abandoned in 1980. In 1999 Joshua David and Robert Hammond formed Friends of the High Line to save it as public open space. Work began in 2006, and the park opened in phases in 2009, 2011 and 2014; the Spur at Tenth Avenue and 30th Street followed in 2019, and the Moynihan Connector to Moynihan Train Hall in 2023.

The walk

The park was designed by James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and the planting designer Piet Oudolf. It starts in the Meatpacking District at Gansevoort Street, three blocks below 14th Street, and runs through Chelsea to the edge of the West Side Yard at 34th Street near the Javits Center. Since opening in June 2009 it has become an icon of contemporary landscape design.

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  Gansevoort Street Southern start, Meatpacking District.
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  Chelsea The middle stretch.
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  The Spur At 30th Street and Tenth Avenue.
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  34th Street Northern end near Hudson Yards.