Coney Island and High Line

New York City is like the people who live in it-diverse with many different stories and personalities. Each individual place reflects the people who built it, whether a hundred or five years ago, and the people who frequent it daily. Coney Island and High Line are two such sites that display their unique characters to their visitors. After walking around for only a few minutes I was able to detect an atmosphere in each of these sites created by the collective mood of the people there.

Coney Island was unlike any neighborhood I had visited before. Because it was a chilly and windy day there weren’t as many people on the streets and boardwalk as there are on a hot summer day but it was still bubbling with life. The feeling I got while walking around Coney Island was the ghost of what was once a glorious amusement park. The remainders of that time stand tall and proud, trying to remind us of what they once were.

Along the boardwalk I felt a shared serenity amongst the people walking, sitting, standing and selling. No matter what troubles they may have and how diverse they are from each other, they are all connected by Coney Island. Like the kites flying nearby, these people are all doing their own thing, yet somehow doing it unison.

My adventures at High Line were quite different than the ones I had at Coney Island. When I finally found the park all I could do was stare in wonder at this Shangri-La above New York City. From down below it appears to be just a walkway, with only gates, people, and a few trees visible. However, the truth is much more striking. As Goldberger says in “Miracle Above Manhattan”,  “walking on the High Line is unlike any other experience in New York. You float about 25 feet above the ground, at once connected to street life and far away from it.”

The High Line is an oasis in the desert that is the bustling industrialization of our city. High Line is the product of the post-industrial age, of a people wanting to experience the city without its constant changes and upgrades. It reminds me of post-apocalyptic science fiction novels, where the destruction of the world is blamed on our generation for our relentless drilling of oil and use of electricity. The new civilizations created in these novels have everything that we have, just greener and with a better appreciation of nature and the world as a whole. This thought came about especially from the rails visible through the bushes. In one place in particular, there was a single tree growing, exemplifying the idea of High Line as a rebirth of nature. High Line is a product of a generation who strives to cure the environment of the diseases we gave it and allow it to blossom in a way that we never allowed it to.

The plants and shrubbery at High Line were, to put it bluntly, not particularly gorgeous, and in any other place would be called weeds. However, it was their rawness that gave them charm in my eyes. Had there been beautiful roses and orchids growing there, all it would be is a garden. Because the plants were clearly left to their own devices, we can see true nature, untouched by humans (mostly), the way it is supposed to grow.

Both Coney Island and High Line are places of relaxation and enjoyment, though in very dissimilar ways. Coney Island gives the visitor something to do, while High Line gives the visitor the opportunity not to do. A contrast between Coney Island and High Line was the sensation of culture that grew over time in Coney Island versus the culture that is yet to come in High Line. While walking through High Line I felt as if it had more to give but needed time to prepare it. Coney Island has been around for decades and is confident in its culture and diversity. What particularly represented this concept at Coney Island were the painted trashcans along the boardwalk.

Another difference between Coney Island and High Line that struck me right away was the values of the times that they were created and how that reflected on each of the sites. Coney Island started becoming popular as machines were getting more complicated and accessible and the attractions built there incorporated the public’s yearning for technology into the pleasurable activities they marketed. The attraction and idea of High Line was the opposite, of throwing off the shackles of the modern and post-industrial age we locked ourselves in. The two sites are converses when it comes to the purposes of the people who created them but are alike in how they are products of their times. Both sites continue to pass along the messages of their creators and their eras, and allow them to live on through future generations.

Works Cited

Goldberger, Paul. “Miracle Above Manhattan.” National Geographic April 2011: 122-137. Print.