A Union of Two Worlds

New York City is often referred to as a “concrete jungle.” It is a chaotic maze with its own unique scenery consisting of its natives, sounds and smells. It can be both terrifying and glorious. It can feel foreign or familiar. This “jungle” is made up of giant looming buildings casting shadows on the rushing passers-by. Bright lights accompany the sounds of blaring horns and buzzing conversations. The smells from street vendors, restaurants and apartment windows waft through the air, providing a brief tease as individuals hurry on their way. And, as with all jungles, there is that one spot that makes people pause in awe; that perfect spring or field that seems out of place and is, therefore, all the more wonderful. In New York City, one of these places is the highline, an unexpected oasis in a frenzied jungle.

The highline is an elevated park created from the restoration of old railroad ruins. Unlike a traditional park, like Central Park or Prospect Park, the highline does not have multitudes of tall trees, but rather sticks to small bushes and flowers which seem almost natural to an abandoned overgrown railway. It has a very simple and modern setup, with simple geometrical benches scattered around and steel railings along the sides.

One of the amazing things about the highline is that it unifies the otherwise conflicting ideas of the creation of modernism and the preservation of nature. Here we have a modern structure that adds to the “hip” industrial neighborhood surrounding it by inserting aspects of the natural world. It is a park that merges with the city instead of trying to escape from it.

I found the creation of the highline to be in accordance with the observed history of Manhattan in regard to the natural versus the artificial. If we look at the cow theme that plays out in “delirious new york” we see a movement from “real cows [grazing] on the site of the first Waldorf” to totally synthetic cows that are “stiff and lifeless, but effective in its production of…endless…milk” (p. 150). Finally, in the last appearance of the concept “cow,” we see both “real cows” and an artificial cow that “milks champagne…and whisky” (p.51) inside the Waldorf, as an integral part of the social event. This evolution of the cow in modern society is repeated with parks. Before the highline, there was nature and the city, two opposite ideas that were in no way connected. What makes Central Park so wonderful is the fact that it is in the center of the hustle and bustle of the city, yet is totally disconnected from that chaos. However, the highline is able to merge the two. It is a park, but not one where you can forget where you are. It overlooks traffic lanes instead of lakes and has modern buildings along its sides instead of trees.

You cannot forget you’re in the city while walking on the highline because the city is an integral part of it. In this way, the highline is able to represent progress and the hope for a unified future where nature plays a more prominent role in our industrialized lives.

This idea of progress and hope is also represented through the Freedom Tower. Just as the highline represents a more promising future, the Freedom Tower does this on a much larger level. Through memorializing those lost on 9/11 this skyscraper takes the ruins of the old and uses it to form something better and stronger. Koolhaas was correct in his statement that a skyscraper, especially one as impressive as the Freedom Tower, “is itself and through sheer volume cannot avoid being a symbol” (p. 100). Merely as a result of its magnitude and significance, the Freedom Tower becomes symbolic of a brighter future.

However, the similarities between the highline and the Freedom Tower don’t end at symbolism. Both these locations have highly modern designs with clean-cut geometrical shapes and sharp edges.

However, unlike the highline, the Freedom Tower doesn’t contain that sense of unifying nature and modernism. The Freedom Tower retains its own type of beauty, one that is entirely structural and artificial down to the rectangular fountain with the gaping square in its center.

During the birth of the skyscraper, many individuals produced varying ideas of what they envisioned as the future Manhattan. One of these sketches called theorem, created in 1909, depicts the skyscraper as being numerous levels of “virgin sites on a single metropolitan location” (p. 83). I found it interesting that this vision of the skyscraper more strongly resembles the highline (in design rather than height) than our skyscrapers today.

In truth, both these objects are a result of the ongoing history of Manhattan, and it is exciting to see what they will evolve into in the future.