Right off the bat, I have already lied to you. The title of this post says that I took “a little walk” to the High Line. And right off the bat, I have failed in properly being an ethnographer due to this lack of retelling with accuracy. The truth is that it was not a little walk at all. It was a relatively long walk and I also took a train to and from the High Line. As I am typing this post, I am wondering whether I should rename the title to “A Relatively Long Walk and a Train Ride to/on/from the High Line”, but that’s too much to write. Now, I will write about what really happened on my way to the High Line…or will I? I probably will. (It’s clear I’m still working on my ethnography skills. Time to re-read the course readings on ethnography.)

One day, I embarked on a journey to the High Line with my trusty comrades: Mark, Robin, and Sandy. It was approximately 10:53 a.m. (a quite specific time I might add) when we departed Brooklyn College and headed down below into the station and boarded the train. It was quite empty in the train and it felt a bit moist and humid. The smell was, for lack of a better term, interesting. I was so tired from waking up early that I nearly fell asleep upon Mark’s heavenly shoulders. (Mark, I hope you aren’t reading this.) We took the Number 2 train to 14th St. It was as close to Chelsea Market as we could get without walking in the cold.

We made a pit stop at a fast food chain called Smash Burgers. Robin and I were pretty hungry since it was lunchtime. So, we made a fiscally responsible decision to each spend $17.00 on burgers, fries, and a shake. It was a good meaty burger (but by no means was it as good as a Krabby Patty though). The fries were fried and the shakes were shaky. The staff was kind. That ends my Yelp review of Smash Burgers.

After we filled up our fuel tanks, we trekked through the concrete jungles of Manhattan to reach our destination. We started on 14th and 7th. We needed to go to 15th and 9th. All we needed was to walk two avenues and one street over. No biggie right? Wrong. It was a yes biggie. As we braved through the city, it grew colder. The cold air creeped straight through my layers of clothing until my thighs, knee, hands, knuckles, feet, and face no longer felt sensation.

I also wore the wrong type of shoes for the occasion. My fabulous boat shoes were no match for cold hard pavement and my feet grew so sore that a pair of Dr. Scholl’s insoles would not have helped. I wanted to call it quits then, but I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t want to disappoint my fellow travel mates, myself, and most importantly, my hubris. Finally, after cursing internally to myself (I read somewhere cursing helps with pain), we made it to the High Line. We finally did it. I was so happy that I cried tears of joy. It was like we made it to the top of a mountain.

The time was now approximately 1:30 p.m. or so. My first impression of the High Line was that there was a lot of metal and wood. It looked like an unfinished construction project. I felt like a construction worker standing above some scaffolding. Despite the lack of grandeur, I did appreciate the simplicity and practicality of the High Line’s design and the furnishings. For example, I saw a bench (shown below) on the High Line made of wood and metal parts.

This is a bench. It is made of wood and some metal bolts. It is used for sitting.

Although it was just a bench, it offered me some refuge as I sat on it and I was able to rest my sore feet. Sitting on the bench, I was thought to myself that it was nice to see something so basic in a city where people usually would expect the opposite. To me, the bench represented a simpler side of New York, away from the glitz and glamour that tourists see in tour books and postcards of the city. Its solid and utilitarian construction reminded me of the characteristics of New Yorkers: hard-working and no nonsense. I came to the conclusion that inside of every New Yorker, there is a bench (a figurative one, of course).

Another thing that stood out was the amount of construction work occurring around me while I was walking on the High Line. This characterized much of the experience for me. Firstly, it provided the soundtrack for my walk as I heard the sounds of hammers and drills hitting metal and men operating large cranes, providing some rhythm and beat to each step I took. Secondly, it provided a scent which I can only characterize as rusty, dusty, and polluted. The air did not feel clean at all. The smell reminded me of when I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and rebuilt a run-down house. I came home that day with the smell of dust and smoke still in my nose.

This is a construction site and soon, a building. The men up there are working hard or maybe, hardly working.

I liked the juxtaposition of the construction site next to the dingy residential building below it as shown in the photo. It represented the ever-changing element of New York City and how people strive to go up (as in upward mobility). It also reminded me of a South Park episode (“The City Part of Town”) on gentrification in which the characters built an upscale district called SodoSopa around the run-down home of a low-income family. It was also a sad reminder that one day all the old buildings will eventually be torn down in favor of newer and better buildings, in favor of a another “SodoSopa”.

Perhaps my favorite part of the High Line was the old train tracks. Those train tracks hold a lot of history as the High Line itself was once an industrial railway. It was interesting to think back about all the trains, people, and goods that have moved along these tracks throughout history. It was as if I was being transported back in time. Not literally though because they have not invented time travel yet nor am I Doctor Who.

These are some train tracks. Trains used to use them. They are now gardens.

Walking towards 20th-something street, I was reminded of of the saying, “the other side of the tracks”. On one side of the tracks you had a view of the waterfront, new buildings, and businesses. Then on the other side, you had the view of residential housing projects. It was a stark contrast that showed a social divide among the social classes of New Yorkers. On one end, there was progress and advancement while on the other end, there were low-income families living in the red brick buildings of the housing projects.

As we were leaving the High Line, I looked at one of the questions on the observation sheet that asked what the fieldwork site tasted like. I kindly asked Robin if he would taste the railings for the purposes of ethnography, but he declined. What I can say about the taste is that it was savory and meaty…wait…that doesn’t sound right. I think that might’ve been the taste of Smash Burger still stuck in mouth.

I left the High Line with some new interesting physical interpretations of the city’s characteristics, but something that didn’t change as we walked back to the train to go back to school was the cold weather and my sore feet.

A picture of Mark taking a picture with Robin looking at Mark taking a picture.