The High Line Tour: How NYC’s Park in the Air Got Off the Ground

Abandoned. Decaying. Reviled. Everyone wanted the High Line demolished. Yet somehow, two local guys saw what no one else did: an opportunity to turn a ruined elevated train track into a park unlike any other, a hidden oasis high above the streets. On this walking tour you‘ll find out how, against all odds, they created one of New York City‘s most popular attractions, and helped turn an industrial district into a hotbed of art galleries and daring modern architecture.

This walk traverses the High Line itself, from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to Hudson Yards. It passes landmarks like the Chelsea Market, where the Food Network films its hit shows, and the The Standard Hotel, sometimes called the Eyefull Tower, where hotel guests notoriously expose themselves to park visitors and where Beyonce‘s sister famously went berserk on Jay-Z in an elevator. We‘ll visit several remarkable chapters in the High Line’s story, beginning with a street-level train in the late 1800's that killed so many pedestrians that this became known as Death Avenue. We'll also tell you about a few of the over 700 creative ideas that were submitted for how to repurpose the High Line, from a mile-long swimming pool to a rollercoaster snaking between the buildings. Our walk ends at Vessel, a sixteen-story structure known as the “stairway to nowhere,“ designed to be a Hudson Yards Instagram icon but which became a tragic suicide magnet.

Along the way, you‘ll:

• Learn how two strangers with a knack for making friends in the right places met and formed Friends of the High Line, which created and operates the High Line in partnership with the New York City parks department.
• Understand the vision of the landscape architects who tried to recapture the wild beauty had naturally reclaimed the abandoned rails.
• Meet Barry Diller, the man who rose from mailroom clerk to mogul, and spent over $250 million to create Little Island, the park that rises magically from the Hudson River.
• Learn why the leading museums refused to accept Gertrude Whitney‘s collection of modern art, and how she built her own
• Admire the daring buildings by today‘s “starchitects“ like Frank Gehry, Thomas Heatherwick, Zaha Hadid.
• See the warehouses which secretly housed the uranium that the Manhattan Project used to create the first atomic bomb, and which remained dangerously radioactive for decades
• Bow before the Chelsea Market, birthplace of the Oreo cookie and today one of the world’s great food markets.
• Hear the legend of the West Side Cowboys who once herded pedestrians out the path of oncoming trains.
• Find the hidden holly tree, planted precisely in view of the the building where Santa Claus was born. Seriously.
• Spot the pier where the Lusitania departed, and to which Titanic survivors returned.
• Turn your eagle eyes on the most dangerous building in America –- for birds.
• Spot the by-the-hour ‘love hotel’ that was once a famous gay go-go club, where Felipe Rose from Village People was discovered.
• Get vertigo beneath the highest open air observation deck in America, the Edge.
• Pay your respects at the spot of New York‘s original train station, where Abraham Lincoln was the first passenger to arrive, and from which his coffin made its final departure.

Don‘t just walk the High Line, hear its remarkable backstory, in the words of the people who saved it, as actors, sound effects and music bring its remarkable people, places, and events to life.

CREDITS: Many of the facts, stories and quotes in this tour came from two excellent books: “High Line – The Inside Story of New York City‘s Park in the Sky“ by the guys who created it, Joshua Hammond and Robert Hammond; and “On The High Line – Exploring America‘s Most Original Urban Park“ by Annik LaFarge.

Additional voices add actual quotes, performed by actors: Peter Collery, Tom Eich, Mattie Goldberg, Clara Marshall, Hugh Osborn, Paul Safsel, Bob Tracy, Lisa Wagner, Claudia Wallis, Josh Wallach.