Memories of the High Line in New York City

I always have been the person who records travels with photos. A common jest from my family is that my photo albums are full of vistas and places, but I am nowhere to be found—because I am the one taking the photos. I don’t need to be in the pictures. The photos are the testament that I went to these places.

While researching for my blog post on desire paths the other day, I had thought to include an interesting place that I visited way back in 2014: New York City’s High Line.

You can see the elements of the old rail line here and there.

That park, built on top of an old rail line and converted to a lush and vibrant park designed for people to walk and get a touch of greenery in the otherwise concrete land of Manhattan, was a welcome addition to the sights of New York City. The place of course, is not quite a desire path but an urban renewal project of an abandoned railway line in New York City, hence the reason why I did not include it in the article on desire paths.

Walking on the High Line, you'll discover many things.

The High Line is the type of travel experience that is a sort of a “refresher” to the typical activities one will do in a trip to Manhattan. Instead of the usual trips to Central Park, Broadway, Times Square, or a ride in the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, one can consider the High Line for a more fun and active experience. But what will you see when you go there? I found the following elements to be the best reasons to visit it.

There are food stalls as well for those who want a snack up there.

1. The walking. The High Line is made for one to walk in it to enjoy and see what it can offer. (A good place to practice walking for exercise!) It’s a great place to walk the West Side of Manhattan, since being elevated above vehicular traffic makes it a pedestrian-safe space. Across the park are plenty of spaces to relax, eat, and sit—offering areas for one to just let the day go by.

Places to rest and enjoy the greenery abound.

2. The greenery. The High Line was once an abandoned elevated rail line that nature took over; plants and grass of all sorts spread around the place (read and see what it once looked like in this page) and created a sort of wild lands in the middle of Manhattan. To harken to this origin, the park is landscaped with various flowers and shrubs to create a unique elevated green space that is unlike anything I have visited before.

I found the plant life very interesting because I am so used to seeing tropical plants. The colorful flowers I saw there that summer were a visual treat.

3. The views. Being elevated above the street, the High Line offers unique views that can’t be matched due to its location. If you are a photographer, the place has angles and shadows that change over the course of the day. You might find yourself staying all day just to capture it all.

The height makes it a good "roosting" spot for a photographer.

I can’t emphasize enough that this place is a must-see if you are visiting Manhattan. Whether you are a photographer, an exercise enthusiast, or just the usual traveler, it is a place that has no comparison to any other place in New York City. The High Line can be found in Manhattan’s West Side, spanning from W 34th Street all the way down to Washington Street beside the Whiteney Museum of American Art.

It looks like these steps face an amphitheater, but actually the view from there is the dynamic streetscape in the previous photo.

For more stories about my travels, you can scoot over to a glimpse of my Singapore trip musings too.

Note: All the photos in this blog were the ones I took during my trip. I took it with an old-fashioned Olympus XZ-2 Digital Camera that has since died due to old age. I miss that camera quite a lot. (I now rock around with an equally old-fashioned Nikon D5500 DSLR—another old one compared to the current cameras of today.)

"Instead of the usual trips to Central Park, Broadway, Times Square, or a ride in the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, one can consider the High Line for a more fun and active experience."