This is a High Line elevated urban park officially opens for thousands of New Yorkers looking to escape the hubbub of the city below! The park is built on top of the skeleton of an old rail system.

The High Line Park was constructed in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District in the 1930s to lift dangerous freight trains off of city streets. Abandoned in the 1980’s the High Line overgrown with wildflowers — an abandoned human structure essentially reclaimed by nature in a matter of 20 years.

The feeling at the High Line today was one of excitement, optimism and pride that New York city was able to take something that was just a gleam a few years ago and turn it into something that citizen can enjoy. For New Yorkers, the High Line is a tangible manifestation of what the future could look like.

The most outstanding features of the park are the preserved rail tracks that poke out through the porous layer of concrete that has been cut away in strips here and there emphasizing a linear aesthetic. Lush shrubbery, reedy grasses and watercolor-hued flowers surround the rust-red tracks in a way that seems deliberate yet natural.