The Highline Park that runs down Tenth Avenue challenges conventional ideas of what a park should look like and where it should be located. It crosses three Manhattan neighborhoods: The Meatpacking District, West Chelsea, and Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton. These neighborhoods do not come across as aesthetically appealing; they are full of abandoned factories and warehouses. The Highline Park itself rests on abandoned railroad tracks that are elevated above the ground.
When Maneesha (my classmate) and I arrived at West 23rd Street and 10th Avenue, we weren’t very pleased with the appearance of the neighborhood, but Maneesha told me it is much better today than it was in the past. At first I strongly doubted that there is a park on the railroad bridge above. The sight of buildings being constructed and debris and graffiti everywhere made it hard for me to imagine that there could be a park anywhere close to that area. When we climbed up the stairs leading up to the park, I was faced with the reality that the Highline Park was truly there. What first caught my attention was the very smooth and clean pathway running through the center of the Highline. The pathway was a pleasant sight. The plants, on the other hand, were not. Most of them seemed dead, perhaps because it is the beginning of December. This made me quite disappointed. As we proceeded with our journey through the park, however, I began to appreciate it more and more. It turned out not all of the plants were dead; along the way we encountered a whole variety of beautiful trees, shrubs, berries, and even green grass. I realized it was wrong of me to jump to conclusions upon first sight.
The Highline Park is actually quite gorgeous, even in early December. The biting cold did not prevent us from taking pictures and enjoying the beauty of the park. There was a shrub of red berries along the way, as well as a certain variety of blueberries growing right in the middle of the railroad tracks. There were plenty of colorful plants and weeds growing alongside the walkway. Uniquely designed benches aligned the pathway, and we saw romantic couples sitting and enjoying themselves on some of these benches. The walkway occasionally passed beneath buildings, whose glass windows pleasantly reflected the sunlight. One of the most surprising things we saw was something resembling a binocular, and when we looked through it the view ahead of us turned into an abstract painting. This invention actually has no lens of any kind. It does it’s trick due to a white board that contains openings in the shape of broken glass. These openings follow a special design which transforms a simple view of the city’s buildings into an abstract painting.
Maneesha and I reached the very end of the Highline Park, and I sincerely admit that my opinion of the place was much higher by the end of our journey than it had been in the beginning. Not only did the Highline Park turn out to be prettier than I expected, it also turned out to be much longer in distance than I previously thought. The Highline Park sends out a very optimistic message to its visitors. The message is that we must always work to make the world we live in a slightly better and prettier place, no matter how unpleasant it may currently seem. We must never be afraid that our efforts will be in vain, and the Highline Park is living proof of that. Even a spec of beauty can brighten the most unpleasant locations, and that it turn will create inspiration and will lead to more beauty in the future. I highly admire the optimistic and courageous determination of everyone who worked to make this project a success.
