Walking through The Highline, a bustling, new park created from an abandoned railroad track running along 10th avenue from West 34th Street to Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District, it’s hard to picture it as anything but a tourist attraction. However, if you take a closer look, it becomes apparent that The Highline is also home to a number of unique plant and pollinator species. Different sections of the walkway feature a variety of different plants and flowers, along with which come the pollinators – in any given area where there are flowers, there are groups of bees and other insects circling the area.
The Highline, in my opinion, is a perfect example of Emma Marris’ idea of a “Rambunctious Garden”. Here, in the middle of a crowded New York City, sits an elevated park surrounded by nature you can’t find anywhere else in the vicinity. Plants, flowers, and trees line the sides of the busy park, as tourists and residents alike line the walkways, admiring the nature, the views, taking in some sun, among other leisurely activities. This combination of people and nature is exactly the essence of the kind of anthropocene that Marris imagines, one in which each compliments the other. The nature of The Highline is one of its main attractions for people, and those same people are the ones helping preserve that natural element of the park. Instead of a world where people and nature are constantly at odds, creating a “rambunctious garden” such as The Highline combines the best of both worlds, allowing us to live with nature while also preserving it.
Richard Stalter’s article about the flora of The Highline, which existed long before the transformative project took place, does not do much to change my opinion regarding the rambunctious garden that has been created as a result. Although Stalter’s article mentions a number of various species and families of plants that have sprung up on The Highline as a result of its long abandon, I don’t think that this project has taken away from it’s natural composition. Before, while it may have been more ecologically diverse and untouched, it was basically an abandoned wasteland in the middle of the city. It had no recreational or aesthetic value, so it was largely a waste of space. With this new project, although largely ‘engineered’ in the sense of which species were introduced to the area, it’s natural element was preserved and even actively enhanced. This new Highline creates the perfect balance of nature and human recreation, which I see as a great idea for the future of our conservation efforts, especially in urban settings such as New York City.
