from June 11, 2009

It’s no coincidence that it’s done nothing but rain ever since the ribbon was snipped on the High Line railtrail park earlier this week. In fact, any student of elementary New York City demonology knows the story of Ezekiel Marcus, who perished on the West Side tracks in 1934.

Marcus was a Manhattan native, born in a cold-water flat in Hells Kitchen in 1899. He’d initially intended to pursue some sort of career in the arts; he attended the School of the Industrial Arts in the midtown 50s as a teen, but dropped out after a few years and embarked on a career on the railroad.

Prior to the High Line’s construction, the tracks ran ground-level along 10th Avenue, which was ridiculously dangerous for people who walked or drove in the area. For a short spell, Marcus was employed as what was known at the time as the “West Side Cowboy”–he would ride on horseback up and down the 20-odd blocks of 10th Avenue to warn pedestrians that the train was coming.

While his urban rustlin’ surely saved scores of lives, Marcus undoubtedly witnessed some ugly accidents too. Who knows how that scarred the young man.

The solution to 10th Avenue’s rolling death trap was the High Line–tracks built some 30 feet in the air. Zeke Marcus working unloading freight trains near Gansevoort Street for a number of years, before the West Side Cowboy himself–savior to countless pedestrians–met his early demise after a fall off the side of the High Line between Gansevoort and Horatio, on what’s now known as Washington Street.

It was December 1934.

Despite temps in the teens, several hundreds of people came out to raise a glass to the brave railroad man at a 10th Avenue saloon called Shebeen, about 100 feet from where Marcus perished. The spot wasn’t far from where he was raised, so when word spread of his death, Marcus’s friends and family came out in droves.

Jump ahead, oh, a half-century or so, and plans for a refurbished, publicly accessed High Line are but a glimmer in Joshua David’s and Robert Hammond’s eyes. A writer, David was researching a magazine story on the changing face of Chelsea when he says he was visited by an apparition in the tiny alcove in his Chelsea apartment where he did his writing.

“He had a long brown beard and wild brown eyes, and he wore a suede cap and black corduroy pants,” David told Beyond Investigation Magazine in 2002. “He told me in a gravelly voice to ‘leave well enough alone.’ I thought he was talking about my magazine article, but I think he realized the seeds for a bigger project were just beginning to sow in my mind.”

Indeed, David and Hammond met at a community meeting a month later in 1999, shared their mutual adoration for the old High Line, and got the (seemingly) Sisyphusian ball rolling on the park project.

Eighteen months later, it was Hammond’s turn to get a visit from Zeke Marcus. Hammond, a painter, said he was on the phone with the actor Edward Norton, an early champion on the High Line, in his apartment when the ghost of Marcus slipped through a heating duct in his kitchen.

“He told me the same thing he told Joshua–leave it alone,” Hammond told a class studying the paranormal at Penn State in 2006. “He said he’d make it rain every day if the place of his death was trampled upon by the masses. I dropped my damn cellphone and had to wait about 20 minutes before I collected myself enough to call Edward back. Even then, I was shaking like a leaf.”

It’s rained ever since Mayor Bloomberg and the High Line swells officially opened the park, and the forecast calls for rain every day for as long as the forecast goes.

Somewhere, West Side Cowboy Zeke Marcus is laughing.

[images: NY Times, The Guardian]

Well, four months after it opened, the TJs finally got out to visit the High Line, the marvelous raised pedestrian park on the Way West Side of Manhattan. What took us so long? Well, it’s a hike from work, the family doesn’t get into the city much, and we’d heard the High Line was, like, cursed or something.

But we made it out yesterday, a near-perfect blue skyed fall day. We easily found a parking spot on Little West 12th, did the requisite staring-at-the-sign for several minutes, wondering if it was too good to be true, then ventured across the street to the rail trail’s southern entrance.

We had a stroller, and there are dozens of stairs and no elevator at that entrance, so we had to take Little Miss C out and haul the stroller up two sets of stairs. I believe the elevator is located at 16th Street.

It being a beautiful fall day and all, the High Line was packed — lots of accents (mostly English) and lots of people snapping photos. On the ride down, stuck in Giants traffic north of the GBW, I’d promised Little G ample views of his beloved “Enterpire” State Building. We did catch one glimpse at the ol’ beauty, but the great views from the High Line are along the Hudson: ferries ferrying by, motorboats, cruise ships, and Jersey doing its jersey thing across the way.

The park is a mix of concrete walkways, boards and what High Liners call “Wild”–the fauna growing on the sides of the walkways. Park volunteers are quite adamant about keeping the Wild wild–one snapped at me for standing too close to what are essentially weeds.

We met some friends, including a very pregnant woman and their 3 1/2 year old, so we didn’t conquer the whole Line. We found seats and a table at a recessed deck area near 15th, and the kids got cupcakes from a stand along the Line. There was no line for the bathroom, and there were even a pair of attendants handing out paper towels just outside the bathroom doors.

The most unique architectural element we saw was some wooden auditorium seating built into the platform around 16th Street, with the bench seats facing a glass wall that shows traffic racing up 10th Avenue. The kids loved watching the cabs, buses and cars roll by. Dad dug it too.

The High Line was teeming with humanity yesterday, but it never felt packed, as everyone keeps moving. The vibe was very positive–everyone seemed impressed, everyone appeared happy to be there. There were plenty of seats, including some wooden platform seating affixed to the old rails that actually slid a few feet in either direction. The kids loved it–there were ramps to climb, buildings on stilts to walk under, rails just below floor level to race along (”I’m Thomas!” “No, I’m Thomas!”), and of course cupcakes to eat. Small children can peer through the walls of the rail trail at the streets below, and I didn’t see any spots where a kid was actually in danger of falling to the street.

The Missus lamented the lack of alcoholic beverages on the Line; indeed, in our previous life, it would’ve been perfect to order a beer or white wine and watch the sun slide down below Jersey. But one can certainly understand the notion of not selling booze to people walking about some 30-50 feet in the air. And there are oodles of trendy brunch spots under the Line, including the recently opened new Standard Grill (one star, NY Times); the teeming Meatpacking District surrounding the High Line is either Manhattan at its shimmery best, or the worst collection of over-trendy restaurants jammed with fading Carrie Bradshaws, depending on your take on New York.

For the more downmarket hunger victims among us, there was a perfectly adequate hot dog stand at the base of the stairs on West 12th.

One very New York-y thing I noticed: lots and lots (and lots) of people snapping photos along the High Line. But they weren’t the typical landscape–cool pedestrian park, river, skyscrapers–shots. No, in true Gotham style, these were glammy shots of friends and loved ones, attempting to look their hippest in a cool setting.

All told, a memorable visit to a compelling landmark.

[image: NY Times]

It’s no coincidence that it’s done nothing but rain ever since the ribbon was snipped on the High Line railtrail park earlier this week. In fact, any student of elementary New York City demonology knows the story of Ezekiel Marcus, who perished on the West Side tracks in 1934.

Marcus was a Manhattan native, born in a cold-water flat in Hells Kitchen in 1899. He’d initially intended to pursue some sort of career in the arts; he attended the School of the Industrial Arts in the midtown 50s as a teen, but dropped out after a few years and embarked on a career on the railroad.

Prior to the High Line’s construction, the tracks ran ground-level along 10th Avenue, which was ridiculously dangerous for people who walked or drove in the area. For a short spell, Marcus was employed as what was known at the time as the “West Side Cowboy”–he would ride on horseback up and down the 20-odd blocks of 10th Avenue to warn pedestrians that the train was coming.

While his urban rustlin’ surely saved scores of lives, Marcus undoubtedly witnessed some ugly accidents too. Who knows how that scarred the young man.

The solution to 10th Avenue’s rolling death trap was the High Line–tracks built some 30 feet in the air. Zeke Marcus working unloading freight trains near Gansevoort Street for a number of years, before the West Side Cowboy himself–savior to countless pedestrians–met his early demise after a fall off the side of the High Line between Gansevoort and Horatio, on what’s now known as Washington Street.

It was December 1934.

Despite temps in the teens, several hundreds of people came out to raise a glass to the brave railroad man at a 10th Avenue saloon called Shebeen, about 100 feet from where Marcus perished. The spot wasn’t far from where he was raised, so when word spread of his death, Marcus’s friends and family came out in droves.

Jump ahead, oh, a half-century or so, and plans for a refurbished, publicly accessed High Line are but a glimmer in Joshua David’s and Robert Hammond’s eyes. A writer, David was researching a magazine story on the changing face of Chelsea when he says he was visited by an apparition in the tiny alcove in his Chelsea apartment where he did his writing.

“He had a long brown beard and wild brown eyes, and he wore a suede cap and black corduroy pants,” David told Beyond Investigation Magazine in 2002. “He told me in a gravelly voice to ‘leave well enough alone.’ I thought he was talking about my magazine article, but I think he realized the seeds for a bigger project were just beginning to sow in my mind.”

Indeed, David and Hammond met at a community meeting a month later in 1999, shared their mutual adoration for the old High Line, and got the (seemingly) Sisyphusian ball rolling on the park project.

Eighteen months later, it was Hammond’s turn to get a visit from Zeke Marcus. Hammond, a painter, said he was on the phone with the actor Edward Norton, an early champion on the High Line, in his apartment when the ghost of Marcus slipped through a heating duct in his kitchen.

“He told me the same thing he told Joshua–leave it alone,” Hammond told a class studying the paranormal at Penn State in 2006. “He said he’d make it rain every day if the place of his death was trampled upon by the masses. I dropped my damn cellphone and had to wait about 20 minutes before I collected myself enough to call Edward back. Even then, I was shaking like a leaf.”

It’s rained ever since Mayor Bloomberg and the High Line swells officially opened the park, and the forecast calls for rain every day for as long as the forecast goes.

Somewhere, West Side Cowboy Zeke Marcus is laughing.

[images: NY Times, The Guardian]

The High Line, the long awaited, celebrity endorsed old rail line that was recast as parkspace on Manhattan’s west side, is now open to the public. The brainchild of a pair of obsessive fans of trains and New York history–writer Joshua David and painter Robert Hammond–the High Line is a landscaped old rail trail that runs from Gansevoort Street to West 20th; the next phase will extend it to West 30th. Pedestrians can enter at Gansevoort and West 16th Street.

The NY Times calls it “something of a New York fairy tale.”

“It started with a couple of guys who met at a community board meeting in 1999 — Joshua David, a writer, and Robert Hammond, a painter — and discovered they shared a fervent interest in saving the abandoned railroad trestle, which had been out of commission since 1980 and was slated for demolition during the Giuliani administration. That began a decade-long endeavor that involved rescuing the structure and enlisting the Bloomberg administration in its preservation and renovation.

The Times also offers up an architectural review of the High Line. Nicholas Ouroussoff writes:

What’s really unexpected about the park is the degree to which it alters your perspective on the city. Guiding you through a secret landscape of derelict buildings, narrow urban canyons and river views, it allows you to make entirely new visual connections between different parts of Manhattan while maintaining a remarkably intimate relationship with the surrounding streets.

The park, which currently extends as far north as West 20th Street, is conceived as a series of interwoven events, like chapters of a book. Approached from the south along Washington Street in the meatpacking district, its 30-foot-high steel deck, supported on big steel columns and sliced off brutally at one end, makes for a striking contrast with the green, leafy landscape atop it. A street-level entry plaza, paved in concrete, is tucked underneath, and a broad metal staircase, with sleek brushed stainless-steel handrails, leads up to the structure’s underbelly. Rusted Corten steel plates line the opening in the deck’s floor, emphasizing the violence of the cut.

In other words, Nicholas likes it.