Coney Island and High Line “Site Observation” Assignment

Art is contrived from the imaginations and creativeness of people, with the intention of provoking emotions and thoughts within others and reflecting on the recreational and cultural aspects of society. Upon visiting the High Line and Coney Island, both located in New York City, it was a “liberation” from the conventional lifestyle and congested city. The High Line’s and Coney Island’s present designs preserve parts of their historical predecessors, but combines natural elements with a meditative atmosphere and exposure of a different side of life with a freedom of expression mentality that is associated to it respectively.

Approximately a century ago, Coney Island was fabricated by men as a result of the altering attitudes in society, transitioning from a strict traditional lifestyle established by Victorian ideologies of maintaining discipline and abstinence to one with an essence of being more lenient and unserious. People were supposed to work diligently and dedicate all leisure time to work. However, with the evolution of transportation and the rise of labor unions, it enabled them to set aside some money and time for themselves. Amusement parks were created to allow people “to live inside a fantasy” and to explore the side of the world they couldn’t experience in the comfort of the city, such as horseback riding, which “is a form of sophistication not available to the people who replaced the original visitors” and because “real horses can never coexist in adequate numbers on the same island with the new visitors,” artificial horses were utilized (Koolhaas 10 and 37).

When visiting Coney Island, I noticed how Luna Park has been restored to a more modernized look and there was a small firefighter ride, alluding to the Midget City Fire Department that ironically fought the big fire of Dreamland (Koolhaas 49 and 76). The area the Steeplechase Park once occupied for its mechanical horses has now become a Minor league baseball stadium for the Brooklyn Cyclones, with the Parachute Jump being the sole survivor of the park. The external layer of paintings comprised of various colors on walls of buildings along the boardwalk and particularly trash cans portrayed the positive, fun, and exciting appearance of Coney Island, which is emphasized by the use of bright colors, and gave their “accommodations” life, a glossy texture, and additional significance. Street performers could be seen preparing and perfecting acts that told stories not through words, but through movements. Coney Island’s beach provides a natural touch to its surrounding “synthetic” environment, but because of the beach’s physical relative closeness to the urban setting, it is overshadowed.

If one were to juxtapose Coney Island with the High Line, the natural elements of the High Line conspicuously stand out because of its elevated position, which isolates it from the rest of the city. An “elevated rail line” that was previously an “abandoned relic,” was resurrected based on a plan that “struck a balance between refinement and the rough-hewn, industrial quality of the High Line” (Goldberger). Unlike Central Park, the High Line was conceived in a natural way, in that wild plants invaded it without any interference, while Central Park was “cosmetic in many ways,” in which its plants were all planted by humans (Gopnik). When visiting the High Line, I was truly amazed at its transformation from the Sternfeld photo shown in Gopnik’s article that shows “what spring in New York actually looks like when it’s left up to Spring” to a promenade with planting areas consisting of the original plants that were initially there and some introduced by humans, stone plank flooring and fountains that make up the irrigation system used to help water runoff travel to planting beds, viewing platforms to look down on the city and perceive it as being more ordered because of how most garbage on streets looked miniscule to the eye, large areas set aside for performances, etc.

An intriguing structure I encountered was the “Still Life with Landscape” sculpture, which incorporated feeding spots and birdbaths to represent the relationship displayed between the plants that inhabit the High Line and the High Line structure itself. Bisected by the promenade, forming an open gateway, people can physically interact with it while walking through it. The “Digital Empathy” sound tracks installed in the park’s elevators, fountains, and bathrooms were also unique to me because they caught me off guard in the sense that the content of the messages was warm and caring, but the way it executed the delivery of them was through a technological voice that sounded very cold, presenting how two very contrasting things can coincide with one another. The open space of the High Line allows people to momentarily elude New York City’s limited land and constantly growing population and is accentuated by the empty lots and partially vacant residencies that surround it. Gopnik mentions how it is the “most peaceful high place in New York.”

Coney Island and the High Line exhibit the difference between the artificial and natural. However, even though Goldberger and Gopnik emphatically point out the natural state of the High Line prior to its construction, with all of the wild plants growing there naturally without any interference from humans, they are still technically growing on a man-made structure. New York City will forever be a fabricated environment as a whole, and the idea of nature residing in it can somewhat be considered futile, for its original foundations were long disturbed and uprooted by previous generations.

Works Cited

• Goldberger, Paul. “Miracle Above Manhattan.” National Geographic April 2011: 122-137. Print.
• Gopnik, Adam. “A Walk on the High Line.” The New Yorker May 21, 2001: 44-49. Print.
• Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New York: Monacelli Press, 1994. Print.

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