New York: Chelsea

One of the most important things to do in Chelsea is walk in the High Line. In the past it was a railway built to transport people and to carry goods. The former mayor, Michael Bloomberg instead of destroying it he renovated it and turned into a urban park. The park extends from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street.

It was built in the 1930s as part of an infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It was created to prevent accidents between trains and street traffic back when industrial warehouses dominated Chelsea; its height separated the railway from the congestion of the streets below.

Back in 1847, trains ran on the street level through the city, and this section of Manhattan was known as “Death Avenue” because of all the train/car collisions. At one point, men on horses, called the “West Side Cowboys” rode in front of the trains waving red flags to warn vehicles to get off the tracks. The High Line was part of a larger project designed to eliminate street-level rail crossings at the same time.

Built in the wake of the Great Depression, the High Line initially seemed fated to fail. After World War II, manufacturing in the city declined, and the elevated railway became useless. In 1999, a nonprofit group called Friends of the High Line — a collection of artists, writers, urban designers, architects, entrepreneurs, and solicitous neighbors — formed to save the abandoned tracks from the threat of demolition.

Now it is a garden that penetrates buildings and warehouses. It is a gallery in which charming billboards, street art, modern architecture, rooftop bars, and extraordinary murals are exhibited. A similar project was made in Paris and it called Promenade Plantée.

You can walk, hang out, see the cultural attractions, that are inspired by the landscape that grew on the disused tracks.The High Line has been seen in media such as the 1979 film Manhattan which included a shot of the High Line, as director and star Woody Allen speaks the first line: “Chapter One. He adored New York City”.