The 14^th street entrance was in sight. Upon viewing the lackluster, metal staircase I lowered my expectations of what would greet me at the landing. In retrospect, I realize that this design aimed to resemble a staircase found at functioning above-ground train stations. This misleading staircase did not prepare me for the beautiful greens, yellows, and browns of the grasses, flowers, and trees. The High Line Park had merged innovative architectural scheming with varying natural features. However, within minutes of traversing the wooden floors amidst my fellow New Yorkers, I came to another realization: this was no park. The space was far too narrow. I found my sentiments in accordance with photographer Joel Sternfeld’s view that the High Line is “more of a path than a park” (Gopnik).

Newfound awareness of limited resources, both natural and monetary, have inspired New Yorkers, and Americans in general, to adopt principles of efficient reusing and recycling. This ideology directly manifests itself in the High Line. With the rails, of a path long abandoned, ingrained in the floors of the park, the depth of the innovative transformation is particularly noticeable. Rather than demolish and rebuild, the railway was revitalized. Furthermore, the urban renewal allows an eyesore of the past to mesh well with the surrounding neighborhood.

Still though, there is something unsettling about the Frankenstein-like rebirth. Once again, Sternfeld’s words echoed in my mind: “I just pray that, if they save the High Line, they’ll save some of the virgin parts, so that people can have this hallucinatory experience of nature in the city” (Gopnik). The high line was saved, indeed, but the hallucinatory experience is absent. The artificiality of the flora became painfully obvious when I witnessed work being done on a certain section of the park. The illusion was broken further through a reminder of the commercial nature of New York City. A mass of people surrounded a large coffee cart, with a gelato cart adjacent to it. A painter attempted to sell her wares a few steps down. This is one attribute of the city that remains timeless.

This commercial nature is even more apparent in Coney Island. Home to restaurants, nightclubs, bars, amusement park rides, and an aquarium, Coney Island offers distinct forms of pleasure. Each comes with a different price tag as well. In times of excess, the magnitude of choices often reflects the surplus. Coney Island seems to have been built on this principle. In a time when Coney Island’s fantastical creations produced much greater revenue, entrepreneurs allowed their imaginations to run wild.

Coney Island was not an escape from the urban confines to a natural setting. Instead, it was an escape to the fantasies of men and women everywhere. For this reason there was little consideration in the surrounding environment, natural or residential. The attractions of Coney Island are disharmonious with its surroundings. In fact, these motley attractions are disharmonious with each other. My walk along the boardwalk, away from the auditory and visual distractions, offered me the most serene pleasure. I could not help but wonder if Coney Island would have been a better place, had the majority of funds been invested in excellent maintenance of the beach.

The hustle and bustle of the city can place a great amount of stress on its residents. Throughout the years, the search for escape in New York City has been as common an endeavor as the search for the dollar. Although Coney Island and the High Line Park seem to take vastly different approaches to finding this escape, the synthetic environments of both left me jaded. A true escape can only be made within pure Mother Nature.

Works Cited

Gopnik, Adam. “A Walk on the High Line.” The New Yorker May 21, 2001: 44-49. Print.

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.

Coney Island and the High Line are two locations where one can escape the busy urban life, yet still be in or near the city. In Delirious New York, Koolhaas describes Coney Island as a place once filled with “technology of the fantastic” with theme parks for entertainment and leisure (29). In “A Walk on the High Line,” Gopnik describes the High Line as a place “in which New York has returned to the wild with an almost Zen quality of measure, peaceful distance.” Likewise, in “Miracle above Manhattan,” Goldberger describes the High Line as “a rare New York situation in which a wonderful idea was not only realized but turned out better than anyone had imagined.”

However, during my first-time visits to both locations, I was a bit disappointed that the “studium view” of both locations did not reach my expectations as others described them. In Coney Island’s case, the entertainment value dissipated over time compared to the Coney Island Koolhaas described during the early to mid-20^th century. In the High Line’s case, Gopnik and Goldbeger’s descriptions of the High Line were somewhat exaggerations compared to what I have observed.

For a Friday afternoon, Coney Island seemed like a ghost town. The amusement parks were closed or deserted. Closed-down arcades surrounded an empty arcade. More people were in Nathan’s than on the boardwalk and the beach. The activity didn’t even change much as I waited for sunset. However, the small details of Coney Island did impress me. I noticed the garbage cans throughout the boardwalk with words, “Do Not Litter,” or some variation painted on them. Some contained special messages, such as “Mama Loves Shanna” and “Ally <3 Lee,” and little child paintings of the ocean in the midst of the chipped paint and rust. I felt that the ocean was a cemetery for the names that were painted on the garbage cans, filled with fading cries for a cleaner beach. I also noticed a sticker on a lamp post that said, “You were born original. Don’t be a copy,” as if Coney Island was speaking out to everyone. Coney Island was no longer seen as the “fetal Manhattan” as Koolhaas described, but instead it was its own kind in its entirety (30).

The next day I walked through the High Line on a cloudy afternoon. As mentioned in Goldberger’s “Miracle above Manhattan,” places transitioned around the High Line as if they were like “episodes.” For instance, the 10^th Avenue Square was a theater-like complex with the city streets as an infinite stream of motion picture. Continue walking down south and one would then enter the sundeck, a tropical paradise-like section of the High Line. I admired the preserved use of the railroad tracks to echo of what it once used to be and to create an artificial coexistence of nature and industrial life with the trees and grasses growing over the tracks. Leisure on the High Line was limited though, from sitting on benches to relaxing on the sundeck. Despite the presence of the lawn around 23^th Street, the space was not enough for recreational activities because many would either simply rest or sit on the grass. Jogging was even not an option with the constant congestion of crowds.

While visiting both sites, I noticed some striking similarities. Both attempted to create a tropical paradise-like atmosphere, whether it was the artificial palm trees on the Coney Island beach or the sundeck on the High Line. The murals around the Coney Island boardwalk and the abstract building structures around the High Line both reflected an artistic taste in the societies nearby. Furthermore, the messages on the garbage cans in Coney Island and the concept of the High Line itself reflected society’s interest for preservation. Amazingly enough, both were locations of interest for wedding photos. In Coney Island, a couple, along with their family, took photos on the beach with the ocean and sunset as the backdrop. On the High Line, a couple took photos with the back of a church (around 21^st Street) as a backdrop in the midst of people walking by.

Although I did mention that I was a bit disappointed of Coney Island and the High Line as a whole, I admired many of the small details. Will I consider revisiting those sites again? Of course. Who knows what I will see in my next visit?

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.