As The Garden Bridge Is Shelved, Here's How New York Created The High Line

Repurposed tracks a masterpiece of urban landscaping

I lived in New York for a while. Not long, but enough time for a hot, late summer expand into a snowy early winter.

That was in 2010, and the High Line was one of the first places I visited, taken by new friends who had been in town longer than me. The southernmost part of the repurposed railway tracks had opened as an elevated urban park just over a year before, and the High Line had yet to make its name as a must-see attraction by discerning tourists to the Big Apple.