High Line

So like the understanding that there is a skillset and a knowledge around construction, which I had such tremendous respect for the contractors.

And I think we all knew that nothing like the High Line had been done before.

And so if we weren't able to work quite collaboratively with our contractors, it was not necessarily able to be built.

We needed their expertise to figure out what were the details that we had that were missing or that weren't quite going to work the way we thought.

So in fact, it was quite a really excellent kind of education and prepared us for getting that first project done in hopefully what was the best possible way in those circumstances.

So you were there, you were in Rwanda for some time.

Yeah, I moved there for three years, starting in the summer of 2009, about a few days after Section 1 opened of the High Line.

just done the math um it's uh 17 18 years so my initial sketch was not exactly you

to make sure that they could shape this grassroots movement.

And in just a few years, the Illinois Prairie Path was born, making it the first rails-to-trails conversion project and making way for other projects across the country, the High Line, the 606, the soon-to-be-completed Bronzeville Trail.

And in just a few years, actually today, the Illinois Prairie Path spans 61 miles across Cook, DuPage, and Kane Counties.

Radical ideas are often dismissed.

From the High Line to the Yellowstone River Basin, this is Montana Talks.

Call in at 406-294-0970.

Welcome to the 9 a.m. statewide Montana Talks Radio Hour.

So if you'd like to hear more about it at length then I'll pop a link to those episodes in the resources but I just want to give you some quick information here.

So The first project was the High Line in Manhattan.

Now, this was my first visit to the High Line.

I got to do a guided walk of it with a volunteer from Friends of the High Line.

Highly recommend if they're still going.

The High Line is actually a 2.33-kilometer lineal park built on a repurposed elevated railway line that sits 10 meters above the streets of New York, and it gets around 7 to 8 million visitors a year.

The design brief, which we were told about at the time, I find remarkable for its clarity.

It was, keep it simple, keep it slow, keep it quiet, keep it wild.

One of the major things that the city is adding, it's called the underline.

which if you know about the High Line in New York City, which is a park built on an abandoned freight railway a couple of stories above the street, the Underline is a beautiful park built underneath the railway.

In this case, it's the Metro Rail, which kind of skirts above ground all over Miami downtown to get people around.

And underneath that, there's this now, I think it's like a maybe 12-mile, 10-mile corridor underneath of art installations and little parklets.

I believe that's what it is.

I'm almost sure that's what it is, is Virginia Creeper off the High Line in New York City.

So it's hanging down off the balcony about 25 feet maybe.

It looks in fall color.

It's spectacular.

The fall color on it is fantastic.

I saw that very scene, not on the High Line, but in Burlington.

Oh, yeah? There was like the fire escape, and it was drooping down the fire escape, and I just didn't have an opportunity to get back for a picture.