Visitors to the popular High Line got more room to enjoy the views and lush green plants at the final section of the park that opened Sunday.
Tourists and New Yorkers alike mingled in the new part of the High Line that begins at West 30th Street at 10th Avenue, hugs a rail yard that stores Long Island Rail Road trains and goes to a path along the West Side Highway to West 34th Street, offering views of the Hudson River and New Jersey.
Rudi Atwell, a 36-year-old flight attendant from Trinidad who flies into the city twice a month, said the view was “priceless.” He said he visits the High Line, a park he had admired since it first opened in 2009, if he happens to have a Sunday layover in New York City. Sitting on a wide wooden bench, Atwell said he liked the furnishings used in the new section, which also featured a play area for children.
“I think they hit the nail on the head when it comes to modern green spaces,” he said.
At 5-years-old and now fully complete, the High Line has been an international sensation.
Nicolas Feihl, a 27-year-old architect visiting New York for the first time from Lausanne, Switzerland, said he liked the new views of the city offered by the final portion of the park.
“For me, it’s quite amazing,” he said. “They still manage to have new ideas and not arrange it in the same way.”
While the High Line is complete, the Hudson Yards area is still being developed, making neon orange netting and cranes part of the scenery.
“The cranes kind of disturb the beauty of the place,” said Linda Carlos, a 75-year-old retired United Nations worker and Kips Bay resident. “There’s a lot of construction going on.”
Nonetheless, she liked the new section’s “raw kind of design” and the “The Evolution of God” exhibit, which is 13 sculptures installed among a “wild, self-seeded landscape,” according to a plaque describing the work.
“It’s very natural, free-flowing,” she said. “I think it’s very aptly named.”
Catya Bastien, a 21-year-old living in Bushwick manning a Mexican ice pops station, noted the grittier look.
“It feels a little bit more industrial than the other parts of the High Line,” she said.
So far, she said the reception from customers has been positive.
“They are super excited about this part opening,” she said.
