The High line is one of New York’s many attractions that successfully merges history and urbanization. New York being a concrete jungle holds the title of swallowing the natural world with modern infrastructure, but ironically enough the Highline seems to reverse this stereotype. Here we have the natural world taking its “power” back, creeping in through the cracks of the pavement and railroad tracks, and even the most dominant color here seems to be green representing the natural environment, and the more industrial aspects of the Highline are contrasted with more dull colors, a combination of browns and grays, almost faded in a sense. What’s most interesting in the design of the Highline is the use of leading lines, although the railroad is the focal point of the picture, it acts as a leading line that creates a vantage point, drawing the eye to another element of nature, the sky. What’s interesting about the sky is its role seems to be parallel to that of green. We can’t visibly see the sun, but its rays are present in the picture, similar to the green making its way into the view. Another repeated pattern I saw throughout the Highline was how many of the railroads don’t continue, some transition into the pavement, and other into bushes. When I think of railroads I think of industrialization, the period of urbanization and this discontinuity confuses the viewer in a sense because living in New York, the urban life is a habit for us, but this forces us out of that habit and offers a 3-dimensional perspective or escape rather from urban life. Lastly, the Highline is evidently very interactive, after I took this picture and walked through the tracks, as expected they didn’t feel real at all, and I feel this was intentional because the earth didn’t come with rail road tracks, they’re clearly man-made, as much of our infrastructures are, and the construction happening on the right side of the picture amplifies that point.
