Orientational Architecture heavy tour of High Line Park

When I first moved to Manhattan from Queens I would follow my West 30th street to the Hudson shore, walking past parked smelly garbage trucks, school buses, old warehouses and an active train yard thinking this is not the Manhattan from TV! This was in 2011 and most of it is gone now but the train yard is still there, covered up and on top of it - the most expensive real estate project in American history borrowing its name - the Hudson Yards. Now this was interesting - watching the whole neighborhood being developed from scratch to a sort of a Museum of Architecture! It is here the High Line starts, a linear park magically transformed from a freight rail line I have accidentally discovered looking for a new walking route to the office, that has now become one of the main Points of Interest in NYC. And with famous architects fighting for a chance to design a building here the neighborhood is constantly growing and transforming: this is the place to be right now to see the mythical ever-changing NYC.

My preferred route direction for this tour is from Midtown to Downtown. • We would begin in the Moynihan Hall, recently (2021) opened Amtrak terminal in the old and neo-classical Postal Office building echoing the famed demolished Penn Station; • Manhattan West (2022) is next; • It's right next to the now famed Hudson Yards where the High Line starts its way to Gansevoort street (on the border between the bohemian Greenwich Village and oh so fashionable Meatpacking district); • On the way we will encounter modern gems of architecture - buildings by the likes of Bjarke Ingels and Zaha Hadid; Imagine this as a slow train ride through a beautiful canyon with stops. We may go down to the Chelsea Market for refreshments if you like; • We will finish the tour at an artificial island built over several years in the Hudson River, it is now a park called the Little Island, so popular they had to introduce a time slot reservation system that was in place for almost a year when it first opened.