Death Avenue: Then and Now

by Lois Rose

In the 1880s, the High Line was constructed as a street level railroad delivering mostly food products to lower Manhattan. Tenth Avenue became known as Death Avenue due to the large number of fatalities at railroad crossings (540 by 1910!). In the 1920s, the West Side Cowboys on horseback helped pedestrians avoid collisions with the trains. The city took note of the hazardous conditions, and by 1924 called for the construction of an elevated line, which is what we now know as the High Line.

The elevated tracks were fully operational by 1934, and due to increased truck traffic were in disrepair by the 1980s. In 1999, CSX opened the area to proposals for reuse.

On a sub-freezing sunny Saturday morning in October, I finally had my first encounter with New York’s High Line. The former rail line was retrofitted as a public park starting in 2006 and mostly completed by 2014. This 30- foot elevated botanical masterpiece runs along 10^th Avenue for 1.45 miles. Camera in hand I documented everything in sight, with nary a person blocking my view. I took in many of the 400 plus types of trees, shrubs, perennials, vines and grasses (a lot of grasses) that despite the freeze and lateness of the season looked pretty good.

The designer of this showpiece was Piet Oudolf, best known in the US for the Lurie Gardens at Millennium Park in Chicago. He was required by the funders to reflect some of the natural environment in the plant community that existed on the High Line before renovation. The plants he chose perform a function and meet a specific visual outcome. They will contribute, according to Oudolf, to biodiversity by supporting habitats where insects, birds and other animals can survive.

Over fifty percent of the plant material is native. The volunteer organization that maintains the High Line Park, the Friends of the High Line, have plant lists and garden zones detailed on their website.

As a few more people arrived while I was there, I noticed that most of them did not seem to notice the plants at all. They took photos of the streets below, the architectural stand outs along the way, and each other. But not the plants.