Two nights ago, a friend of mine invited me to the Highline Park, a place I have never heard of before but regardless I was still excited to venture out and see this attraction. I got the feeling of being like a tourist in my own city.
THE HIGHLINE PARK
What is so unique about The Highline Park? The Highline is a park built on what used to be an elevated freight railway called the West Side Line. It begins on Gansevoort Street near West 12th Street, in the so-called “meatpacking district” and then stretches up to 34thth Street into the Chelsea neighborhood. CHECK OUT HISTORY OF HIGHLINE HERE. It wasn’t until recently of June 2009 that the first section of this park was opened. Almost all the meat packing industries are gone but the buildings are still there and now instead of housing meat, these buildings house many luxurious brands for people to shop. There were also many restaurants and nightclubs.
In my eyes, the park alone is a work of art in itself because I would never have thought a pair of railroad tracks could be transformed into a public park. Besides the view of the NYC skyline, streets of Manhattan, and the nature scenery, there were also actual pieces of work created by artists present all around the park. Unfortunately, after arriving at the park for about ten minutes, Mother Nature decided to pour and thunder, so I wasn’t able to venture the entire park to see these artworks. As a result, we spent our time sitting in a sheltered area that had a system of different bells that rang a different sound each minute. We soon discovered that each bell sound represented bells that were located all around New York City. I found this to be very interesting because bells ranged from the United Nations Japanese bell to the New York Stock Exchange bell. After some research, I discovered that this project is called “A Bell For Every Minute” created by Stephen Vitiello.
Lastly, as we were leaving the park, we found some very creative “artwork” while looking down to the ground. We saw large writing conveying different messages. The one that caught my eye the most were the words I saw on top of what looked to be three trailers. BELIEF +. DOUBT =. SANITY, was split up and written on top of these three trailers. There were much more messages like these, on the floor, sides of a building, on the fence enclosing this area, and on a billboard. Sadly, I was not able to determine the artist for this artwork since there was no indication of a name.
I will definitely make another trip to this attraction on a day when it doesn’t rain. For those of you who have not been to The Highline before, it is a definitely a trip to make. You can find some of the pictures I took of this along with some parts of the park below. I have also included a video of one of the large messages I saw placed all along a side fence.
I was reading the Art section of the NY Times a couple of Saturdays ago and i came across an article about a conceptual artist whose work looks very much like the “Belief +.Doubt=Sanity” in your photos. I had forgotten about her until reading your last post, so thank you very much for reminding me. Her name is Barbara Kruger and she is known for making collages layered with photographs and bold wording. Her pieces are a bit minimalist but very powerful nonetheless.
I tried to add some photos by her to my comment but I don’t know if that’s allowed. It seems to mot be possible, we’ll probably have to run it by Maggie. Google Barbara Kruger if you want to see more of her work.(I assume everyone who wants to see more would do that anyway)
Interesting post. The High Line Park is a clever way to make use of a stretch of elevated highway that would not have any other useful purpose. Space for people (especially people in a crowded urban setting) is valuable, it is interesting that the urge to put some sort of art work in such a setting is interesting as a natural outgrowth of defining a public space.