forgive us our trespasses

the high line is the old elevated subway track that runs along the west side from 34th to 14th streets. it's in complete disrepair now, the tracks all worn and rotted and totally overgrown with weeds. today javier and i went exploring along the length of the high line, and i realized--as has been happening more often lately--how much i love this city.

i definitely prefer this kind of urban hiking, rather than mountains or rivers or forests. we had to escape a security guard to get on the high line (at 34th street). there were all sorts of obstacles in the way, weeds being the least of our worries: abandoned buildings, large metal sheets with mouseholes in them to crawl through, having no way out at the other end, and other travelers as well. toward the end of the line (at 17th st), you hit a police impound lot. there's a staircase leading down, but if you take it you'll be trapped in a cage made of fence, a sitting duck for the lot guard and a trespassing ticket. farther down is the old subway station, complete with token turnstiles and platforms. there's a good bit of metal sculpture art there as well. at the very end is another abandoned building that's being developed into office space. it sits on the top of a gas station, maybe about 4 feet separating the roof of the station with the floor of the high line. i did some exploring there, looking for a way out, that involved crawling in the small space and trying to find a column with sufficent hand- and toe-holds. i was spotted. during the day i was reminded many times of disc golf.

javier said that the high line is a place where metal structures go to die. we saw one metal chair skeleton, still sturdy enough to hold my weight. there was a full-on classroom desk chair, one of the ones where the desk is attached to the seat. all along the way there are discarded pieces of metal, and there's a fair amount of artwork along the way. it's a bit of urban wasteland, sandwiched neatly between the west side highway, chelsea piers, and the hudson on the west, and the rest of manhattan on the east. i started noticing how pretty the buildings looked. at one point, looking north, the red buildings of chelsea looked like something out of m.c. escher's head. there's a pretty unobstructed view of the empire state building as well.

on the way back, just before the first metal sheet blocking the path, we ran into a garden. i still can't believe we didn't see it on the way there. it had a neat little fountain and everything. someone from the building nearby had run a hose out of his window onto the high line. the hose had little pinholes in it and was capped at the end, acting as a sprinkler. by then javier and i were quite thirsty, having forgotten to bring water. so, we uncapped the hose and washed some of the dirt off our hands and drank a bit. the owner stuck his head out of his window to ask us to watch our step--as if we hadn't noticed. we drank our fill and restarted the sprinklers, then moved on our way.

just as we'd resigned ourselves to walking all the way back to the beginning, we noticed a game of bocci ball happening just 10 feet below the high line, on the roof of an apartment building. we stopped to chat with a couple of the guys there, and it turned out they were in the middle of a family reunion weekend. a ladder was leaned up against the high line, and we asked if we could possibly use their staircase to get down to ground level. of course, they said yes. the friendly man walked us through what turned out to be a gallery of graffiti art, the aurora gallery. he showed us the proposal that he and a friend had submitted for part of the re-development project being planned for the high line. the plan calls for a two- or three-block area of the high line to be converted into an exhibit of international graffiti art with large sculpture monuments in the middle of the track. at one end would be a new museum, designed and run by dia (currently being renovated). the plan seemed really neat, a fresh take on the traditional art-in-the-park model. we wished him luck and walked down the stairs.

wait for pictures.