More Views Of The High Line

The NY Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff was worried that he would see "see Carrie stumbling down its promenade with a broken heel, weeping over Mr. Big," but instead: "I was overjoyed this weekend when I climbed the stairs at Gansevoort Street, entered the new city park and felt an immediate sense of calm. Designed by James Corner Field Operations with Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the first phase of the High Line, which opened on Tuesday, is a series of low scruffy gardens, punctuated by a fountain and a few quiet lounge areas, that unfold in a lyrical narrative and seem to float above the noise and congestion below. It is one of the most thoughtful, sensitively designed public spaces built in New York in years...The care and patience with which this project was developed, both on the part of the architects and the High Line’s founders, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, is a rarity anywhere. They have given New Yorkers an invaluable and transformative gift."

Bloomberg News' James Russell believes the designers dodged every pitfall (even though "It could have been overwhelmed by the bureaucrats, the interest groups, the rules. It could have been made too precious."): "The park shoots through city blocks at 30 feet in the air and bores through two buildings. You may pause blissfully above traffic-clogged cross streets, enjoying slotlike vistas across the width of Manhattan. Panoramas of the river open up, dotted with a crooked grid of rotting pilings. The plantings are more mature in the northern end of the park’s first phase, and they already form a flower-dotted, thigh-high meadow so soft you want to throw yourself in. As the plants mature and the colors change, the wonders will only increase."

Here's a map showing where you can enter the park.