In “Parks for Profit,” Loughran depicts how public spaces can be viewed in terms of privilege: in this neoliberal era, wealthier neighborhoods get more developed and maintained parks in an attempt to draw in tourists and wealthy consumers, while parks in poorer areas are underfunded and neglected unless they can serve “growth” schemes. One thing Loughran writes is how the High Line is narrow and linear, and has few places to sit, play, or linger. Additionally, I skimmed through a High Line documentary, and it revealed – no doubt unintentionally – that the park’s purpose is just to look pretty and bring in money (Great Museums 2014). For instance, it says how the High Line is a theater and the plants are performing on stage. Also, it revealed that the sun lawn is closed 2 days a week to “regenerate” because so many people use it, and actually most of the greenery is roped off. Additionally, the documentary claimed that the kids love playing and walking along the tracks, but the first of the many rules for the High Line is the prohibition against walking along the tracks, gravel, and plants (Norman n.d). The purpose of the park isn’t for kids to play, but to just be aesthetically pleasing. Also, Amanda Burden is filmed saying how the northern end of the High Line comes around the Hudson Yards and claims that we’ll see the expansion of a whole new neighborhood. As we read in previous readings, the Bloomberg administration was itching to get their hands on Hudson Yards, and the High Line was a pet project of Burden who claimed the High Line not only turned into an iconic public space but also boosted development in the area. In fact, Burden calls the area “Architect’s Row” because of all the starchitecture nearby (McGeehan 2011). The High Line’s purpose, then, wasn’t to be a place to play, but rather to bring in tourists and upwardly-mobile residents in an attempt to revitalize the area; it’s a place to walk through and consume and spend money.
Not only is the architecture of the High Line meant to deter certain actions, but, as I mentioned before, there are rules for what is and isn’t allowed in the park. Things like picking flowers, walking on plants, bicycling and skateboarding, commercial activity or performances except by permit, and even a classic park activity like feeding birds are all prohibited on the High Line (Norman n.d.) Also, employees constantly collect bottles to prevent lower-income people from bottle-collecting. Moreover, in their overzealousness to have what they consider the “best,” Friends of the High Line promulgated so many rules for sellers which make it difficult to function. To get the opportunity to even sell in the park, food vendors have to go through a 2-month selection process that includes shelling out a non-refundable smacking $1,000; then, if they get the chance to sell, food vendors aren’t allowed to have trash bags or even give people napkins, and have to empty their hidden trash boxes far from the park after their shifts. And only artisanal, hand-crafted foods are selected, vendors who sell more common street food – and who tend to be immigrants instead of middle-class college graduates – are demarcated to the streets under the High Line. Additionally, only 5 artists are allowed on the High Line each day, which actually hurts artists. And in order to make sure their rules are followed, Friends of the High Line have security cameras and private security patrolling the grounds (Wilson 2011). All these actions are conscious efforts to make the High Line comfortable for a certain group of people while simultaneously making it uncomfortable for another.
Furthermore, the High Line narrative completely ignores the fact that the original residents who lived there before the park were largely displaced. Moss writes that the area used to house working-class residents and light-industrial business, but between 2003-2011, property values increased by 103%, redeveloping the entire neighborhood for a new elite group of residents (2012). In light of this, the Community Parks Initiative makes me skeptical. First, the website touts how the government improves parks in underserved neighborhoods while completely ignoring how the government is the reason why the neighborhoods became so underserved to begin with and why the parks were neglected at all. Additionally, looking at the before and after pictures, they really just slapped some paint on the playgrounds (and, in some cases, planted a couple bushes) and called it a day. Also, obviously the “after” pictures look better because the “before” ones were taken on foggy days with low lighting and a lot of the photos are on skewed angles, whereas the “after” ones were taken on sunny days, with greater lighting and contrast, are straighter photos, and some even have people playing in them. It seems to me that the government is like ‘oh look how good we are/we’re totally helping the poor/look how nice we made this bad area your park is prettier now so you can forget all about the years of institutionalized racism you faced at our hands.’ I don’t really think the kids that live there really care if the paint glistens in the sun or not. Growing up, there was a park by my house that had flaking green paint and I loved it. I mean, give kids an open lot and and a stick and let their imagination do the rest and they’ll be happy. Which is why I don’t think these improvements were done for the good of the people living there. This is politics, and in politics there’s always an angle. But whether this is just a ploy to show that Mayor de Blasio is helping the less fortunate and garner support for a reelection, or if it’s, as Loughran believes, part of the more sinister undercurrent of those in power putting funding into a park in order to revitalize the neighborhood, I don’t know. All I do know is that, using the High Line as an example, history shows that this has happened before, and unless we’re careful it can happen again and again until low-income people are completely pushed out of the city.
Are these parks being fixed up in order to transform the area like the High Line did and eventually displace the current residents? I sincerely hope not.
Readings:
NYC Parks. (n.d.). Community Parks Initiative targeted improvements. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from https://www.nycgovparks.org/about/framework-for-an-equitable-future/community-parks-initiative/caring
Loughran, K. (2014). Parks for profit: The High Line, growth machines, and the uneven development of urban public spaces. City & Community, 13(1), 49-68.
Additional Works Used:
Great Museums (2014). Great museums: elevated thinking: The High Line in New York City. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CgTlg_L_Sw
Mcgeehan, P. (2011). The High Line isn’t just a sight to see; it’s also an economic dynamo. The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/nyregion/with-next-phase-ready-area-around-high-line-is-flourishing.html?referer&_r=1
Moss, J. (2012). Disney World on the Hudson. The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/in-the-shadows-of-the-high-line.html?_r=0
Norman, N. (n.d.). Defensive architecture. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://www.dismalgarden.com/archives/item/defensive_architecture/2911
Wilson, M. (2011). The park is elevated. Its crime rate is anything but. The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/nyregion/the-high-line-park-is-elevated-its-crime-rate-is-not.html
Hey Dahlia, I really enjoyed your post! I agree with all of your points and came to the same conclusions during my reading as well.
What I personally found interesting was the fact that despite being classified a “park,” and one that is public at that, the High Line is more like an art piece in a museum. There are a whole lot of aesthetically pleasing elements of the space for certain people to enjoy looking at but there definitely isn’t much else to do but walk; you definitely can’t touch things and frankly, I’m not sure if you can even breathe comfortably without someone staring you down. Like you pointed out, kids couldn’t fully enjoy the space because they need freedom and, well, space. Not to mention, I personally feel as though no New York City park experience is truly complete without street food from all different cultures, and yet, vendors had a hard time getting approved to sell in the park. Essentially, the Friends of the High Line envisioned a certain area for a certain group of people in a certain part of town and it all comes down to how much money they can bring in.
Although I can see why people with money would want to have a space where they can be surrounded by more people of money with the same tastes and values, isn’t it about time that they stopped pretending like they want to include the whole public when they really don’t? Let’s keep public spaces public and relabel the spaces that aren’t.
Hey Dahliah,
I completely agree with your point in that places like the Highline are created to make some people feel comfortable even at the risk of making other uncomfortable.
I feel that this in specific is a major problem not only with the Highline, but throughout New York City as a whole. People in power, such as city planners, often care much more about the aesthetics of the city and what would appeal to them, even though their interests and likes do not represent the city as a whole. I find that this is often one of the most important flaws in the planning of New York City buildings and institutions because all of the planning efforts are typically put toward what would appeal to the middle and upper classes, while not considering the lower class or the homeless. These two groups make up a large part of the city’s demographic, and I believe that a place like the highline, where all you do is simply look at it, serves no purpose to these people.
In my opinion, the highline is similar to Robert Moses’ construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway in the respect that although it is beneficial to the city in some ways, like aesthetics, it could have been conducted in a better and more efficient way. Like the expressway, this project displaced many people including the homeless, who are not allowed to loiter by the Highline. This fact alone infuriates me because so much money goes into making places like the museum – like Highline, which has no function other than being nice to look at, while there are people who literally have no place to live or use as a shelter. I feel that more efforts should be put into finding these people, and those who are constantly displaced by the construction of new institutions, places where they could live, rather than continuing to construct places where they are not even allowed to be.
Overall, I feel that this is a recurring theme within New York City, where the decisions made do not take the citizens as a whole into account. In my opinion, if these types of things keep continuing to occur, our city will get nowhere. How can a city be successful if its leaders and institutions only consider and represent some of its citizens?