When Mike invited me to join his group of urban explorers in going to the High Line I was really excited. Hopefully the Friends of the High Line‘s preservation plans will go through, but I wanted to experience the railroad as it is now, raw, before that. It wasn’t easy to walk it in the snow for hours, I was completely wet and freezing to death, but it was definitely worth it.
The High Line was built in the 1930s to elevate dangerous and congested railroad traffic from New York City’s streets. The rise of trucking in the 1950s led to a drop in rail freight on the High Line and in the 1960s part of the High Line was torn down. The final freight train to run on the High Line carried 3 carloads of frozen turkeys in 1980. In 1993 another chuck was demolished. Now there are plans to preserve the High Line and to convert it into a public park.
When Mike invited me to join his group of urban explorers in going to the High Line I was really excited. Hopefully the Friends of the High Line‘s preservation plans will go through, but I wanted to experience the railroad as it is now, raw, before that. It wasn’t easy to walk it in the snow for hours, I was completely wet and freezing to death, but it was definitely worth it. I will be posting many more photos soon.
The beginning of our walk, at about 33rd Street and 11th Avenue.
A No Trespassing sign, looking west towards New Jersey. You can see that we were at the same level as the street lights from the avenue below.
Looking down to the east at the Hudson Yards.
Looking west over the partially frozen Hudson River to New Jersey.
Looking south.
Somebody marked part of the rail for some reason.
More of the Hudson Yards.
At about 30th Street, looking east. The Empire State Building is on the left in the photo.
There is barbed wire everywhere along the High Line. It’s obvious they don’t want anyone up there.
Looking back west from where we came from. In the right of the photo is a billboard that is over 11th Avenue, which goes under the High Line here.
Steve eggs Tien on as he makes a snow angel.
A chimney stack catches the early morning sun.
The first of our major barriers. This wall is completely blocking off the railway.
A closer look and we see that there is a hole cut in the wall.
No problem!
Adam assisting Mike through the hole in the wall.
The other side of the wall has a beautiful mural of the view on the other side of the wall. “Save the Tracks” is spelled out in the clouds.
Save the Tracks.
Shortly after the first wall we came up to another one. Tien runs ahead to check it out.
This wall we had to lay down and shimmy under. Here, Steve peeks out from under the wall.
Tien down in the rails.
Moose Graffiti. I also have photographed a Moose tag in the Street Writing Project.
Through a hole in the wall of graffiti I take a peek at what’s going on below.
More graffiti.
Adam.
Our shadows on the wall of a building on the side of the High Line.
And more graffiti.
A view down a street in the 20s.
Adam, Mike & Tien checking out some graffiti.
Tires.
Neck Face
More barbed wire.
Cost & Revs are two very famous graffiti artists from the late 1980s to early 1990s.
Looking back.
Brick Wall
Empire State Building behind a church.
Adam and Steve.
Looking back.
Looking east.
Tracks.
Coming up to a building. Mike, Adam and I take the high road and Steve and Tien take the low road.
Inside the building there was tons of debris. These look like some sort of old machine parts.
Garbage.
Wire.
Chair.
Mike spotted these mannequins in a building east of the High Line.
Near the end of the High Line. We couldn’t find the way down so we ended up walking all the way to the beginning!
See Also:
– Friends of the High Line
Other People’s Photos from our Adventure:
– Winter High Line 1 by Mike
– Winter High Line 2 by Mike
– Winter High Line 3 by Mike
– Winter High Line 4 by Mike
– Walking the High Line by Tien
– As Seen on the High Line by Tien
– Seen From the High Line by Tien
– Photographs of the High Line, by Rosecrans Baldwin in 2001
– The High Line by Queso in August 2002
– BluishOrange’s Photos of the High Line, August 2002
– The Highline, by Jake Dobkin in August 2002
– Photos of New York City’s High Line by David F. Gallagher, October 2002
– a walk on the high line in June 24, 2003.
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Nice photo, Rachelle. I love the Highline. It’s such a beautiful place to explore.
thanks.. mike, tien and i have many more that we will be posting soon!
I agree – friggin awesome photo! ‘scuse my novice knowledge of the city, but where exactly is that…?
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the shorty explanation is that it’s an old, abandoned elevated railroad track that is closed off now.
all of my photos are posted now. I think tien and mike are still working on theirs.
That Save the Tracks mural is amazing!
It was nice meeting you today, Rachelle. Your pics are great … makes me wish I’d had something other than my analog with me while we were up there.
it was nice to meet you too.. i like the photo of you sneaking under the wall!
Sweet! I love the first razor wire photo (#10), and the brick wall in #35 would make great wallpaper.
Interesting photos Rachelle Mike and
Tien
I did read a article last year in the wall street journal about the high line
Question: Is that not in the area were they that is the mayor and other city officals.
Would like to build the new Jet
Sadium
Great job guys
Glad you guys didn’t get caught/ticketed with trespassing. That’s one way to leave NY!
i know! we were trying to be careful if we saw any police or anything. luckily at the parking lot where we snuck in the attendant wasn’t there.
dad, the new jets stadium is supposed to go either by or where the hudson yards are, i think.
New stadium is to be built over the hudson yards.
There were footprints in the snow. Did it look like lots of people had been up there in the past few days?
The city’s in a bind with the trespassing thing. They don’t want people getting hurt, yet, all the photos are great publicity for turning the High Line into a unique park.
in some places there were already footprints and in others were were on our own. in a way it was nice when there were already footprints because we could step in them and the snow wasnt as bad. on the otherhand, it was more exciting to know we were the first ones up there since the snowfall in some places where there were no footprints. of course this meant we had to plow through the snow on our own .. and in some spots it was over knee deep. also the snow made the footing really difficult. you didnt know what was under the snow… rail, garbage, plywood, etc. once mike stepped directly into a buried bucket and was thigh deep in the snow.
There’s a thigh in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza…
that front page photo is fantastic!
Terrific pictures, I have often wondered about the line, how long was the section you walked?
we started at about 33rd and ended at about gansevoort.. so maybe like 20 blocks?
thanks, and did it go further, or was that the end there? btw Your ‘photos on the site are always great, did you study photography or art?
thanks, wi… uh.. impressed. i havent studied art or photography but would like to take some photography classes. the only photography class i’ve ever had lasted 1 quarter, was in 10th grade, and was mostly taken as an excuse to skip class to go “take photos”. goof off class. oh, and we walked to the end of the line, til there was no more.
the photos are fantastic. great work – it was great meeting you – continue your work as you venture to other places
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thanks, adam, it was nice to meet you too.
I took that graphics arts class in high school too. It hardly qualifies as a photography class.
Rachelle, which one of us is that in the title picture? Just curious.
yeh, Mr. Foos, the instructor of that class, is hardly a photographer. he used to rub the girls shoulders when we were trying to do our publishing work.. and lock us in the dark room with pubescent teenaged boys who had raging hormones. not a great idea.
steve, i think that may be you in the photograph, but I’m not positive. someone else asked me too.. i should take another look at the original and see if i can tell. i think it’s either you or adam.
Great Pics!!!!!
Here is another abandoned “right of way” maybe you can tour it too 😉
http://www.ameritech.net/users/chicagotunnel/tunnel1.html
Actually, it’s Fuhs… but who’s counting. Ya, that class was kind of a blowoff, but taking all the photos was kind of cool. I think I still have my photo album from that class. I don’t remember ever getting locked in the dark room with girls.
yeh, and i bet he never tried to massage your shoulders either!!!!!! i still have my photo album too. it’s pretty sucky. at the end i didnt have enough photos even though we were supposedly taking photos every day so i brought in some negatives from home, from mom & dad’s camera, and developed them in the school dark room. we traded some negatives too.. i acidentally developed one photo flipped horizontally. i didnt know it was flipped horizontally because it was of someone else’s parents in someone else’s kitchen. i got busted because the words on something behind them, like dishwashing soap, was backwards and he was all like “dont you even know what your own kitchen looks like” and i was like.. “uh.. i didnt notice because that’s at our neighbor’s house.” im sure he believed that.. yeh. right.
chris, the chicago tunnels look cool. ill have to look for them when i get there.
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i think i ended up ripping off some photos too. he always told us that we were just supposed to go to the park across the street, but then never said anything when our photos were from all around town.
fuhs told us that if he saw a photo of the clocktower downtown and it said 1:30 (or a time that was obviously a time that we were supposed to be in the park taking photos) then he would assume we had checked out a camera and taken photos on the weekend. that was basically permission for us to skip class. only one student got in trouble and that was because he was harassing kids who were running the mile for gym class. the gym teacher complained .. what was his name? mr. murray? …and that student guy had to sit inside for the rest of the semester and take photos of pictures in magazine. brutal.
i think it was Mimier. (sp?) one time i got out of running the mile in phy ed by saying that my ankle hurt from the track meet the night before. it did kind of hurt, but i still probably could have ran.
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wow, rachelle, thanks for taking me on that virtual photo tour! i’ve been seeing tien’s photos show up on his page, too, and it’s just been amazing. i never knew the high line even existed! you guys are brave to have done the journey, what with the scooting under walls and going through old buildings. were you scared?
the only scary part to me was around the hudson yards. . its pretty wide open so you could totally see us up there and there were also helicopters flying around on the hudson river so they for sure saw us. to top it off, hudson yards has a really loud PA system and when they would talk i would think they were yelling at us and i was ready to instinctively drop to my knees and put my hands up!!!
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BTW, that train yard is called West Side Yard, not Hudson Yards.
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