Getting to the Bottom of the High Line Controversy: How Good Design Spurred Chelsea’s Gentrification
On Tuesday the self-proclaimed “bitterly nostalgic” New York blogger Jeremiah Moss did something that few have thought to do: he openly criticized the High Line. He’s not the first to publicly cast his disapproval of Chelsea’s elevated park, citing in the same ranting breath the anonymous flyers that went up in May instructing “High Line Tourists” not to confuse West Chelsea for Times Square. But the op-ed, unlike the flyer, was printed in the New York Times — proper byline, illustration, and all — and it led off with the cuttingly suggestive headline “Disney World on the Hudson.” From there, Moss proceeded to lament the loss of authentic place and the rampant gentrification of the west Manhattan neighborhood, pointing a finger at the neglected elevated railway that fast became a “tourist-clogged catwalk.” Naturally, readers reacted fervently.
On social news website Reddit, comment threads grew lengthy and heated. Moss’s grievances over tourists bottlenecking the narrow, linear park were incessantly picked apart as the complaints of a snobby, entitled nativist, resistant to change and overprotective of his stomping ground. Some interpreted his mournful remarks about shuttered auto shops — the multigenerational businesses that gave the area its “Gasoline Alley” nickname — as nostalgia for the automobile industry in a city pining for more bike lanes. A blitzkrieg of comments proposed the author’s self-banishment to the Bronx, Jersey City, or Portland.
One commenter on Moss’s blog “Vanishing New York” labeled the writer as “a lazy critic” who “is not interested in either exploring the nature of our changing urban environment or discussing the merits of the [High Line]’s design.” The commenter, who goes by the name Walter Gregg, is undoubtedly one of many who view the High Line as a design-driven force for good, a shining example of adaptive reuse and a triumph of democratic initiatives.
And why should he think otherwise? The original idea for the High Line was proposed by two West Chelsea residents, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, who wanted to preserve the historic railway and open it to the public. The two drummed up enough grassroots support to gain the attention of city officials, and with the help of the then emerging design superstars at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the High Line opened in the summer of 2009 and has attracted exponential levels of praise ever since. When it came time to fund the second and third segments of the park, celebrities like Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, and Diane von Furstenburg threw in their support. No one questioned the demand for more High Line.
Again, there was seemingly no place for skepticism. West Chelsea felt cleaner and safer now that a chic park ran through it, and to the surprise of many, the heady design concepts of Diller Scofidio + Renfro made for a very popular and much-imitated city attraction (who knew architecture could be this cool?). The heavy use of the park seemed an apt measure of its success. “So NYC created this marvelous thing called the High Line and it’s popular,” wrote artist and blogger Paul Soulellis in response to the Times op-ed. “At certain times of the day it’s even crowded … This is a problem?”
The problem, however, was never the fact that the manicured wilderness, “peel-up” benches, and artfully framed views of the city managed to appeal to the masses. That an aged industrial relic could go from being the culprit of urban blight to a trendy destination in the eyes of the public is, in large part, a testament to the power of the design. The problem is that design is always the instrument of a larger program, and it is the larger program that Moss criticizes (though he begins by bemoaning the High Line’s scrubbed-off graffiti, the “tamed wildflowers,” and the scant number of benches and exit stairwells that unwittingly turn the park into an “endurance test”).
Not until the eighth paragraph down does Moss get to the meat of the issue: “While the park began as a grass-roots endeavor — albeit a well-heeled one — it quickly became a tool for the Bloomberg administration’s creation of a new upscale, corporatized stretch along the West Side,” he wrote. “As socialites and celebrities championed the designer park during its early planning stages… the city rezoned West Chelsea for luxury development in 2005.”
It is here that Moss refuses to beat around the bush, his ranting tone finally distilling into a clear argument. The writer’s allegedly “lazy criticism” suddenly blossoms into an organized collection of facts, stories, and statistics: published studies indicated a 103 percent increase in property values near the park, local businesses reported alarming drops in profit, and mega-brands are eyeing the same commercial spaces that jumpstarted boutique local businesses not too long ago. One only has to look at the string of slick, residential high-rises flanking and straddling the High Line to understand how a former neighborhood of mostly working-class residents and light-industrial businesses has drastically changed.
Change in itself is not something to be feared, especially in a city like New York. But change that stifles diversity is, in fact, a disquieting detriment to any city. Moss may pinpoint tourists, developers, and wealthy property owners as the scourge of West Chelsea, but the largest group that he condemns is people who are disrespectful of the kind of socioeconomic and cultural plurality that has shaped New York into what it is. As one commenter on Moss’s blog put so earnestly: “To me, a New Yorker is someone who appreciates the city in large part because of its diversity… Someone who is here because it’s ‘cool,’ who only hangs out with others just like themselves… who doesn’t note or genuinely appreciate ALL of the different types of people who make this city so great… here is someone who will NEVER be a New Yorker.”
Unfortunately, the High Line was designed as a magnet for these theoretical out-of-towners, as part of an effort to ensure that wealth begets more wealth, regardless of whether or not it remains in the hands of an elite few. Moss’s op-ed does not call for the end of parks, civic projects, and high design, nor does it call for a rally to bring an end to tourism. The author understands that the nascent idea behind the High Line — to make something beautiful and share it with the public — cannot be blamed.
Making something beautiful for the public does not necessarily mean it will be shared, though, especially in a city with such drastic levels of income inequality. For this to happen, the city must step in to ensure that less powerful and less affluent parties are protected, that different socioeconomic groups can still coexist when something desirable pops up on the market. If what Moss is saying is true, the city acted contrarily by encouraging the rezoning of West Chelsea. The High Line — being such an alluring work of design — became, quite literally, a lure to attract groups powerful enough to steamroll socioeconomic diversity and reconstruct the neighborhood into a more glamorous version of New York. What Moss suggests is that if this continues, New York will soon be a “vanishing” city of people who can afford to “only hang out with others just like themselves.”
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