Two Parks

Posted: July 29th, 2009 | Filed under: Manhattan, Queens

Two New York City parks opened recently — the much-heralded High Line on Manhattan’s West Side and the much less-heralded (and clunkily named — at least the label for it I discerned on a map at the park) North Recreation and Interpretive Area portion of Gantry Plaza State Park in the Hunters Point corner of Long Island City, Queens.

We visited the High Line both during the day and at dusk. First things first, it’s cool — a nice way to “repurpose” an industrial relic. Nicolai Ouroussoff was elated. The project has received nation wide and world wide attention. It will surely raise property values in a once-blighted part of the city (though it hasn’t really been that blighted for twenty or thirty years now as property values there steadily rose anyway). The plantings are very artful, though as a friend remarked, she’ll also be excited to visit the High Line in the winter, when it will likely resemble its former state.

The High Line is also really, really expensive. The entire project, once it is built up to 30th Street, will cost $152 million, $108 million of which coming from the city, according to the papers (and with private donors chipping in $44 million, you can bet that they’ll feel a great sense of ownership over it). And it’s like 30 feet wide. So yes, it’s cool and all, but $108 million could build a lot of playgrounds, and that $44 million is $44 million that won’t be available for other philanthropic endeavors (even other non-profit park endeavors). (And remember that West Side redevelopment remains one of Bloomberg’s legacy projects.)

But for now, it’s cool to see New Yorkers and visitors so jazzed at the novelty of the High Line. I just hope Ouroussoff’s “shifting narrative” is worth it in the long run.

Maybe you like billboard advertisements in your parks. If so, you’ll love the High Line:

Then there’s the Standard Hotel, which is (I think) the only new building that the High Line runs through:

Reports are that it has become a hotspot for exhibitionists and voyeurs alike, which is what it is; it’s got a bunch of glass, after all. But then the Standard people apparently started actually soliciting “hot” “erotic” photos, which is when it gets into the realm of media whorism, verging on fucking disgusting. So why not tax those assholes all you can? Yay, gross people humping in a window! Enjoy it — that’s your Meatpacking District. Hoodely doo.

While Mayor Bloomberg and whoever else were cutting ribbons at the High Line, another park opened in Queens, with more modest press. At the risk of sounding all Armond White about it, yeah, the High Line is cool, but have you actually seen the new North Recreation and Interpretive Area portion of Gantry Plaza State Park? Now that’s a park. There is room to sit, stroll, play, relax or whatever it is people do when they patronize public parks:

And they’ve got hammocks:

Where the views from the High Line are intriguing (an old warehouse from the vantage point of the second floor — I get it), the views of the city from the new part of Gantry Plaza State Park are stunning:

And then there are the Adirondack chairs:

And I don’t think this park cost $150 million, either.

The other salient point is that Gantry Plaza State Park is, as its name indicates, a State park — not a City park (as the High Line is — sort of, now that it’s maintained by a non-profit conservancy, which is another issue altogether). At some point these past couple of months I began wondering if the State is actually building or putting together all the greatest parks in the city now. This new spot in Long Island City is one, but there’s also the crazy popularity of Governors Island and then even stuff like the reconstituted Pool Parties at East River State Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Where the Bloomberg administration seems preoccupied with development — not only around the High Line but also at Coney Island, the people in charge of the city’s state parks seem more interested in people actually using open space. That’s something to think about.