The High Line: Auguries of Innocence

I approached the High Line along West 30^th Street, currently its northern terminus. Unknowingly, what I came to first was the old, unrestored elevated railway. Rusted, topped with crumbling concrete, and defaced with graffiti, it rose above construction barricades and cyclone fencing. This wide end of the rail yard spur completely covered the intersection of 30^th Street and 10^th Avenue, like a crude, industrial porte-cochère for the entrance to the park beyond. When the light turned green, a blur of taxis, trucks, and busses zoomed through.

Passing underneath, I emerged from its shadows into the open air. I thought of Frank Lloyd Wright, who characteristically designed low-ceilinged foyers to increase the drama of entering his more spacious interior. Ahead I could see, though barely, the thin line of green vegetation rising from the greenish-black painted steel structure I recognized as the High Line itself. To my right, atop the rust-stained gray concrete of the old rail line a scraggly fringe of autumn brown grasses and weeds fluttered gently.

The sky above 30^th Street narrowed, wedged between the two sections of the line, the old and the new. The street felt considerably narrower still, however, due to the construction fencing along both sides. In defiance of the Great Recession Chelsea is experiencing a construction boom and it’s indisputably due to the success and popularity of the High Line.

As I approached the sleek, shiny steel staircase that would lead me upwards, I found myself suddenly amongst a small throng of people all converging on the same point. No matter. I was thrilled to be there. We ascended patiently, like passengers embarking on an airplane or patrons at an amusement park queuing for a ride. When I reached the level of the park, 30 feet above the street, an elevator door opened next to me and disgorged more “passengers.”

None of this prelude prepared me for the carnival atmosphere I encountered as I stepped into the constant river of people making their way along the narrow pathway atop the High Line. I eased into its flow, carried along on a current of humanity. At first a few spindly trees clung to the edges, rising a bit higher than the human river. These soon gave way to clumps of waist-high ornamental grasses intermixed with yellow and blue flowers. Marvelous as it all seemed, my first impression was less like a walk in a park than one along the boardwalk at Coney Island on a hot summer day.

It was October 2012. The High Line, that unique and influential park, had already been open for three years. Not only was it not new, it had become a sensation, a rock star of urban parks. It had been likened to a flying carpet, to “a suspended green valley in Manhattan’s Alps,” and to Alice’s Wonderland. Cities all over the country, including Milwaukee, were trying to figure out how to emulate its success.

However, on that warm Indian summer afternoon, I was blissfully ignorant of most of this. I had read a brief news report about the High Line when it opened in 2009 and immediately found myself enchanted by the very concept of it. But there had never been a good opportunity to go to it, living in the Midwest as I do.

When the opportunity finally did present itself, I did nothing to prepare for the experience. My mother had died and I was going to NY for the memorial service. (Once again I have her to thank – see my previous post). I tacked on four days to spend in Chelsea and to walk the High Line.

I had done no further reading about it. I didn’t go online and look at the High Line website. I saw none of the now famous pictures that Joel Sternfeld and others had taken of the High Line’s picturesque wildness. I didn’t avoid these things out of some principled belief in the purity of unmediated experience. I didn’t deliberately avoid doing what most people now do out of cultural habit and expectation. That it just never occurred to me to do these things seems in retrospect to have been providential.

I characteristically eschew guided experiences. When I travel I avoid tour groups. I rarely choose to pick up audio guides at museums. Like Ralph Waldo Emerson I want an experience that is my own, not one shaped by prior knowledge. This is merely my natural inclination, though, rather than a philosophical conclusion about the importance of unmediated experiences.

And so I came to be on the High Line with fresh eyes, unprejudiced with anyone else’s expectations – exaltations or disappointments. I came to face the paradox.

There were crowds, yes. But there was no unruliness to them. It was curiously peaceful. The more I walked amongst them, the farther behind I left my impression of Coney Island tumult, of being passengers on an amusement park ride. In its place came the feeling of participating in a pilgrimage, amongst strangers who were nevertheless companions on the road to some sacred shrine.

What were we seeking? There was a semblance of nature, neither a formal garden nor anything like a wilderness. The city surrounded us, but at a distinct remove. The High Line was unquestionably real and yet ambiguous, abstract. We were collectively engaged in imagining… something! Something each of the thousands of visitors brought within themselves, to engage with the world as they found it in this place, like the grain of sand in Blake’s famous line. And to feel the passion of what follows:

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

I did spend four days in Chelsea and walked the High Line at least once on each of them. The longer I was there the more telling became the parallels with Blake’s epic poem, Auguries of Innocence, most of which is far less well known than that first stanza and which concludes with this:

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

To be continued.

This is the second of a series from the High Line. To read my first, click here.

Urban Wilderness: Staten Island, NY

The photographs throughout this post are from Staten Island’s Greenbelt system of parks and trails. Some of them illustrate passages directly from my story, but others are meant as a complementary photo essay.

Having a few hours before I needed to return my rental car at Newark Airport, I thought I might explore a bit of the Meadowlands, which are nearby. However, the spaghetti of freeways on the map was more than a little intimidating. Trying to navigate them in the car seemed a fool’s errand. I opted for Staten Island.

Although I grew up in New York and have visited “the city” many times since I moved to Wisconsin, I’d never been to Staten Island before. Someone said, “Why go there? It’s just another suburb.” In fact, on a map it looks much more like part of New Jersey than New York.

Why go there? I’d read about Fresh Kills, once the world’s largest landfill. An ambitious project now underway means to transform it into parkland. Its 2,200 acres make it three times larger than Central Park. It sounded like an appropriate urban wilderness adventure to me.

After the twelve-lane expanse of New Jersey Turnpike, the drive across the tunnel-like Goethals Bridge was a white-knuckle adventure in itself. A large steel paneled truck rattled along mere inches away from my side mirror. As we sloped down out of the cattle trough onto Staten Island, the road widened again. Wetlands stretched off on both sides, seasonally sear and brown, but a welcome contrast to the seemingly endless port terminals, refineries, industries, and highways of New Jersey.

Fresh Kills was easy to find. The West Side Expressway slices it like thanksgiving turkey. Barren mounds rise on either side like skinned breasts laid on a platter; man-made mountains that dwarf the houses, hotels, businesses, shopping centers, and power plants around its edges.

Cypress knees

As parkland it seemed completely unsatisfying; a pregnant wasteland that leaves me wondering how a landfill can be called “former,” as if the noxious contents will ever disappear. Maybe it will be more convincing in thirty years, when the “state-of-the-art ecological restoration techniques” have had a chance to mature.

Cypress and goose pond at Willowbrook Park

I circled it, looking fruitlessly for a way in. I didn’t need the numerous “no trespassing” signs to convince me to find a more inviting place for my urban adventure.

Fortunately, Staten Island offers many other opportunities to scratch my itch for exploration.

I chanced upon Willowbrook Park, despite narrow street access and low visibility signage. I found there a lovely pond surrounded by a paved path full of people strolling amid aggressive geese; cypress trees and a slew of their attendant knees along the water’s edge; and a park office with a map of The Greenbelt. Score! That led me to a larger, more alluring natural area.

I parked at the Greenbelt Nature Center, ignored the irony of the bench on its small lawn that bore a plaque reading “THE ADVENTURE BEGINS HERE!” (Am I supposed to sit?), and plunged gratefully into the forest. A more compelling sign on the nature trail proclaimed that this area will remain “forever wild.” I set out hopefully in search of its promise.

The trail, which was wide and clear enough to follow without assistance, was emblazoned with rectangular swatches of colorful paint. Apparently that wasn’t enough for someone; everywhere I went there also were vibrant pink and orange ribbons dangling from branches overhead. As I progressed along several trails with differently hued markers, I came to places where some over-achieving trail manager (or adolescent volunteer?) had spray-painted the ground itself, along with an occasional rock, wooden bench, and even dead leaves. No getting lost in this urban forest!

Photomontage of trail markings

Spray paint aside, the forest was indeed pretty wild. Leafless trees poked up from heaps of logs and downed branches that were shrouded in vines, brambles, and creepers, like thick cobwebs, making the place appear disheveled, faded with neglect, like Miss Havisham’s dining room in Great Expectations.

The trail dropped into hollows, some too muddy to cross, requiring me to backtrack and choose an alternate route – red or yellow this time? It wound around stagnant pools, like dark, cloudy crystal balls, mirroring the broken sky. In one a giant timber dipped into the still water, as if a gargantuan witch had long ago abandoned labors over a murky cauldron.

An unmarked (but easy to follow!) spur trail led to “ruins,” as identified on the trail map. My expectations of discovering a romantically decaying colonial mansion were dashed, though, by what proved to be the remains of a small corner made of rough stone with a set of concrete steps leading up to…a snarl of small trees. A ring of blackened charcoal, along with beer cans in a cave-like basement window well, indicated regular and irreverent visitation.

 

However, despite all the manifestations of humanity, my hike was quite solitary and peaceful. By the time I returned to my rental car I had spent long enough in the wilds of Staten Island to quiet my restless spirit and to brave a return trip over the Goethals Bridge and the short stretch of turnpike to the airport.

Ribbons hanging from branches to mark the trail.

The Meadowlands, as well as a rehabilitated Fresh Kills, remain on my bucket list for future explorations.

Scientists study evolution in New York City

“Evolution is one of life’s constants. New species emerge; old ones become extinct. Environmental changes have often steered evolution in new directions. And modern cities like New York have brought particularly swift changes to the environment.”

And so, according to this fascinating article in the New York Times, scientists have begun studying evolution in some of the most unlikely of places, including the medians that divide traffic lanes on busy streets.

Like studying evolution anywhere, the work isn’t always easy. However, the complications in an urban setting tend to be somewhat different than in, say, the Amazon rainforests: “We get police called on us a lot,” said Dr. Munshi-South, an assistant professor at Baruch College. “Sometimes with guns drawn.”

Some of the equipment they use gets mistaken for drug paraphernalia, too.

“…Urban evolution is attracting more research these days, because cities are fast-growing, and the urban environment is quickly taking over large areas of the Earth’s surface.”

The issue of invasive species is another constant in evolutionary studies. This article offers an unusual perspective: “As the invaders adapted to New York, they put extra pressure on native species, competing with them for space and food. In the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, for instance, American bittersweet vines are dwindling away, outcompeted by Oriental bittersweet. At the same time, the two species are interbreeding, producing hybrids. “It’s a double-whammy,” said James D. Lewis, a plant ecologist at Fordham University.”

Check it out: Evolution Right Under Our Noses.

Artificial nature in New York City

Alienation from nature goes to a new low in New York City as people flock to an indoor “park” with fake grass, plastic foliage, and lighting fixtures that simulate sunlight in order to “treat seasonal affective disorder.” The artificial park described in an article in the New York Times is not even aesthetically tasteful, like Milwaukee’s domes or any indoor botanical garden might be. I can relate to seasonal affective disorder – Milwaukee winters can be long and brutal to the soul. But New York has plenty of real parkland outdoors – more than most cities – and there’s no substitute for the real thing when it comes to nature. If it’s cold it’s a good idea to bundle up, but still...go outdoors!

This story is sad on so many levels:

The Grass is Fake, but the Splendor is Real.

Make sure you check out the slide show, it is unbelievable.