High Line preview and celebrity audio tour to roll out on Oct. 7

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 1| September 29 - October 5, 2006

Chelsea Now photos by Jefferson Siegel

Joshua David, co-founder of Friends of the High Line, overlooking the southern end of the High Line at Gansevoort St. On Oct. 7-8, F.O.H.L. will host a presentation of the High Line project by design teams that will feature a viewing of the project’s southern end from a nearby balcony.

By Albert Amateau

High Line Park, the 1.5-mile elevated rail line along Washington St. and 10th Ave. being converted into the city’s first park-in-the-sky, will have a preview on the Oct. 7-8 weekend, when the park’s design team will give hourly presentations at 820 Washington St.

From noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, a design team staff member will take small groups of visitors to a second-story balcony overlooking the southern end of the old viaduct, now stripped down to bare steel and concrete, and talk about the future of the park.

“We had 2,000 visitors when we did this over a two-day period two years ago,” warned Josh David, co-founder of Friends of the High Line, the volunteer organization that convinced the Bloomberg administration to transform the derelict elevated railroad into a park. “We can’t take reservations, so it will be on a first-come, first-served basis and there may be some waiting,” he added.

The High Line presentation is one event in the fourth annual Open House New York program, which opens to the public various sites that are ordinarily closed. Information on the weekend event is on the Open House New York Web site, www.ohny.org.

In addition to the Oct. 7-8 presentation by the team of landscape architects Field Operations and architects Diller Scafidio + Renfro, visitors with cell phones will be able to take a street-level, self-guided audio tour of the High Line from Oct. 7-31.

Phone numbers will be posted on High Line pillars at 14th, 15th, 17th, 22nd, 25th, 26th and 30th Sts. for different messages by celebrity Friends of the High Line, including Glenn Close, Kevin Bacon, Diane von Furstenberg and others.

A map and details about the audio tour will be available at www.thehighline.org.