On the High Line by Annik LaFarge is a comprehensive, up-to-date and acclaimed guide to the High Line by the leading expert on the history of the park, and now published in a fully revised edition.
Built atop a former freight railroad, the 'park in the sky' is regularly cited as one of the premiere examples of adaptive reuse and quickly became one of New York’s most popular destinations, attracting more than 8 million visitors a year. This updated Third Edition of On the High Line is published to coincide with the fifteenth anniversary of the park’s opening and remains the definitive guide to the park that transformed an entire neighbourhood and became an inspiration to cities around the globe.
In short entries organised by roughly two city block sections, the guide provides rich details about everything in view on both sides of the park. Illustrated with more than 110 black and white photographs, it covers historic and modern architecture; plants and horticulture; and important industries and technological innovations that developed in the neighbourhoods the park traverses, from book publishing and food distribution to the introduction of cold storage and the development of radar, the elevator, and talking movies.
Updated to include newly opened sections of the park, this edition also discusses the more controversial side of the High Line’s story and how it became a poster child for the most grievous manifestations of gentrification and inequity in public spaces. Annik LaFarge provides a frank discussion on how the park’s leadership created a platform for discussing these issues and for advising other projects on how to work more inclusively and from a social justice and equity perspective.
Annik LaFarge has been writing about the High Line since 2009, beginning with the blog LivinTheHighLine.com, selected by the Columbia University Libraries Web Resources Collection Program for inclusion in the Avery Library Historic Preservation and Urban Planning web archive. LaFarge is a Trustee and Chair for the Waterfront Museum in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and author of Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions.
Fordham University Press, 224pp, 15cm x 23cm, illustrated paperback, revised edition 2024
