When thinking about the elite reconstruction of the High Line, I think it is important to remember Amanda Burden’s characterization of Harlem, which was recounted in the documentary we watched in class (Rezoning Harlem). She motioned down Harlem’s main drag, filled with soul food and other culturally significant restaurants, and concluded that there was no place to eat (Rezoning Harlem). The readings we have done for this class (specifically Parks for Profit by Kevin Loughran) have led me to believe that the rich don’t want any place they might set foot in to feel ‘uncomfortable’ or in Loughran’s words like a “quality of life violation’. The High Line was no different. However, the moment they command a formerly impoverished neighborhood as their own ‘public’ space, they are quick to institute security and deterrents to privatize the place that they once felt excluded from. I was struck by the stark difference between the policing of public parks in poor areas and the policing of the High Line. I find it telling that parks with private investors and programming aimed at a wealthy neo-liberal audience have security guards and surveillance keeping people out, policing the influx of people into the park based on behavior (57). In poor parks, policing takes place within the park, and removes people participating in ‘illegal’ activity from the park after having patronized it. The High Line’s security and surveillance, coupled with the regulations on cleanliness meant to deter low-income people from collecting bottles (62) [and even from becoming food venders] (59), shows that the High Line’s regulations which come from the wealthy members of Friends of the High Line try to make the park as comfortable as possible for rich people, and patently uncomfortable for the poor. I would classify this as preemptive policing, which functionally privatizes the park without the community backlash of openly saying that the park is ‘rich-only’.
On a similar note, Loughran describes the way that people only pay attention to poor parks when they can make the wealthy money as “growth schemes” (51). This sparked my interest, because it made me think about the mindset of the upper class and the concept of entitlement in relation to public space. Specifically, when money is commodified to the point that it defines social worth, it provides a sense of entitlement to the bearer of that money. The highline as an abandoned railroad track was a part of a low-income neighborhood, a neighborhood that had very little to offer the wealthy (51). The privilege detailed in Loughran’s paper shows the nature of entitlement to public spaces, and the desire of the rich to obtain spaces using their wealth and change them to make them comfortable for high-brow activities.
In the 2013 article High Line Offers a Walk on the Wild Side by Lisa W. Foderaro, the plan for third installment of the highline is discussed. It was opened to the public in 2014. In Foderaro’s article, she builds the anticipation for the new section of the park which would be comprised of rusted rail road tracks overgrown with native plants and shrubbery. It is heralded in her piece as a way to “evoke the ruin and rebirth that the founders found so compelling in the first place”. She mentions that the money for the construction came directly from the luxury company Coach whose building was slated to “straddle the new section, called High Line at the Railyards” (Foderaro). It is interesting to think briefly about the initial call to arms concerning the High Line, in which it was implied that the only way to save it [and the neighborhood beneath it] was to change it, via sleek architectural design made possible by the donations of the elite. However, this third section is simply a sanitized version of the original High Line, created for the rich to meander on. When the High Line was synonymous with ‘poor’, the structure bore interest only in its potential to ‘fix’ the neighborhood it inhabited. Now that the High Line attracts predominantly white, high-income people (60), its patrons can fetishize the ‘wildness’ of the original rails without the discomfort of having to interact with people of other socio-economic classes.
In relation to the concept of “growth” schemes (50), much of what can be seen on the “Community Parks Initiative Targeted Improvements” website for New York City Parks Commission seems to be cosmetic fixes, not functional ones. Most of the changes made seem to be paint jobs, the removal of graffiti, the planting of little bushes. This type of park restoration, which only changes the outward appearance of the park without improving functionality based on community consensus, is simply a way for the city to show how much they ‘care’ about income inequality and the poor, without having to actually spend any significant time or money assisting them with what they need and want. Furthermore, these changes and ‘upgrades’ reflect more on what the parks commissioner thinks a ‘good’ park looks like than what the people using it do. The painting over of graffiti, for instance, is seen by many who grew up without graffiti culture to be assisting and improving a neighborhood. However, graffiti can be seen as an art form and a way for people within the community to express themselves and air their grievances. Writing and making art on public property, while illegal, is one of the most pure and direct forms of protest to a city and a society that has left you behind. To paint over it in efforts to appease the angered masses is only to ignore their strife and, metaphorically, paint over the actual problems that impoverished communities face.
The complete rebranding of the High Line and the makeover of low-income parks, while different in cost and outcome, prove a similar point. The construction of parks is rarely based on the needs of the people currently living in their vicinity. Instead, changes made to parks largely have to do with keeping up appearances, within the city and abroad. Just look again at the ‘targeted improvements’ that DeBlasio’s administration has made. They harken back to Jane Jacobs’ “look what I made” concept: that developers and city planners ‘fixed’ these parks so that they could show them to the city, and prove that they ‘helped’ low-income communities. So, of course, in all of the ‘after’ photos, the weather is better than the ‘before’ photos. The sun is out, whereas each ‘before’ photo has a gloomy sky. The changes are paraded in front of the citizens of New York, to push this narrative: “You see? The poor aren’t that bad off!” and “See this ‘bad’ neighborhood? Look how nice we made it!”. With the High Line, the city officials and elite investors in this “growth” project get to peddle a narrative of having ‘fixed’ a poor area, and show how much happier the residents are with their shiny new park (50). Never is it mentioned in their triumphant account that the current residents are elite residents and that they have displaced the ones who used to live there. The poor are instead shifted to a new corner of the city, to have the same struggles and the same lack of visibility until their neighborhood starts to seem monetarily and socially beneficial to a team of elites, who can yet again band together to give them a park and ‘save’ their block.
Works Cited
Foderaro, Lisa W. “High Line Offers a Walk on the Wild Side.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 2013. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
Loughran, Kevin. “Parks for Profit: The High Line, Growth Machines, and the Uneven Development of Urban Public Spaces.” City & Community 13.1 (2014): 49-68. Web.
Rezoning Harlem
