Built 75 years ago and abandoned for the past three decades, the elevated freight train platform that snakes up 1.5 miles of Manhattan’s West Side is being transformed into a lushly landscaped walkway in the sky.
HL23
Residences in LA-based architect Neil Denari’s 11-unit space-age building, situated on an impossibly skinny West Chelsea lot, are on the market (prices start at $2.65 million). Among the project’s fans is Kanye West, who blogged, “Have you ever seen something so good you thought you’d die without it?” 517 West 23rd Street.
245 TENTH
The stainless steel panels that wrap the façade of this under-construction 21-unit condominium are a reference to the rails it now looms over. A terrace on the second floor will get residents close enough to reach out and touch passing High Liners (keep it clean, people!) once phase two of the park opens in 2010. 245 Tenth Avenue.
THE CALEDONIA
Caledonia architect Gary Handel’s 24-story condo/rental hybrid gets up close and personal: It connects to a public stairwell that leads up to the High Line, and an in-building yoga studio looks directly out onto the path. Downward dogs are a little less private here. 450 West 17th Street.
HIGH LINE BUILDING
This 10-level office building, developed by Charles Blaichman (who built the nearby members-only social club Soho House), sits on top of an old brick meatpacking plant built over and around the tracks for easy loading and unloading. Those tracks have a new look, and so do the tenants: Fashion house Helmut Lang has signed on for two floors. 450 West 14th Street.
STANDARD NEW YORK
André Balazs knows that the real draw at NYC’s first Standard Hotel (Balazs’s fourth overall) will be the High Line. His 18-story, 330-room hotel—partially open during construction—straddles the 18-to-30-foot-high, 30-to-60-foot-wide High Line platform, which was nothing but concrete, weeds, and rusted steel when building began. 848 Washington Street.
WHITNEY MUSEUM
A new Whitney will anchor the starting point of the High Line in a broad, six-story building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano. When it opens in late 2012, the museum will have more exhibition space than the original Whitney (which will remain open). There will be a free lobby gallery, and foot traffic between the grand staircase and the High Line, just steps away, is sure to be bustling. Gansevoort and Washington Streets.
