Twenty-five years ago last month, we met at a community council meeting and discovered we had something unusual in common. We both wanted to preserve an unused freight rail line that was about to be demolished and turn it into a lush, elevated park.
We didn’t want the city to repeat the historic mistake of destroying the original Penn Station. Our community and our city could collectively reclaim a beautiful piece of industrial infrastructure and transform its rusting iron into a new urban treasure. Not everyone understood that. But most of our neighbors in the West Village and Chelsea did. The West Side community fought for this vision, eventually winning the active support of the Bloomberg administration. The result is the High Line.
Born out of the community, the community has embraced the High Line as its neighborhood park—and protected it from numerous threats, including proposals to demolish the northern-most third of the High Line, to demolish the High Line’s 30th Street spur, and, in 2020, to build a view-blocking wall adjacent to the same northern section.
All of these proposals were made by Related Companies, the developers of Hudson Yards, and all were defeated by vigorous grassroots activism. But now the High Line is under threat again from Related and its casino partner, Wynn Resorts: They are now proposing a massive Las Vegas-style development on the western railroad tracks that would block views of the city and gut a hard-won, community-backed plan for a more balanced development centered on a large green space overlooking the river.
Related and Wynn’s new proposal would sweep away years of civic engagement that led to the proposed development site’s rezoning in 2009. Neighborhood leaders, elected officials and this same developer went through an arduous but ultimately successful process to create a master plan that includes up to 5,700 housing units, a beautifully designed green space, a school and a daycare.
Although no one at the negotiating table got everything they wanted, the 2009 plan was a clever compromise that made the most of the site, weaving the superblock into the cityscape and creating a downtown version of Central Park’s Great Lawn, overlooking the Hudson River.
The developer now wants to cancel the deal and rezone the site. The main changes include much taller and wider buildings on a disproportionate scale, less accessible green space, more office space (in a city that has a surplus of it) and less housing in a city that is desperately short of it.
From the perspective of pedestrians walking the High Line, the “magical feeling of floating through the city” that this newspaper so eloquently described 10 years ago would be blocked by a towering structure the developer calls a podium (200 feet tall according to their articles), whose location would block those iconic views. Inside the podium: a windowless Vegas-style casino. From magic to banality.
And what will the effect be on local commerce? The same imposing structure will house 10 to 15 restaurants and bars catering to high rollers. Suffice it to say, it is not supporting the community fabric of Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen. This contrasts with other casino projects in the New York area that offer incentives to patronize neighborhood restaurants.
To achieve their goal, the developers need city officials to rezone the site once again and obtain a casino license through a state-run process. These are momentous decisions for local and state officials. Generations of New Yorkers will have to live with this decision. Will their choice resemble the catastrophic folly of tearing down Penn Station or the visionary genius of city leaders who wanted to preserve the High Line?
Yes, reflexive opposition to development is unfortunately all too common in New York. But this is not a NIMBY debate. The West Rail Yard absolutely must be developed. It is one of the last major undeveloped sites in Manhattan, and it represents a unique opportunity. As the community has long desired, we can add thousands of housing units, mixed-use spaces, a new school, other community amenities, and new green spaces seamlessly integrated with the High Line. And create thousands of new jobs in the process.
We only have one chance to succeed. Related and Wynn’s new plan fails to meet the criteria of sensible and authentic urban design and must be fought with the same spirit that gave life to the High Line 25 years ago.
David and Hammond founded Friends of the High Line in 1999, which helped build and now maintains the High Line park.
