[Fredslist] NY Times op-ed on the High Line

[BFendelman at aol.com]

Corey,
Classic story of you can't please all of the  people all  of the time!
The writer's complaint is the very essence of Manhattan, make  that greater 
New York.  SoHo, Chelsea, the Lower East Side, Tribeca,  Harlem, Dumbo, all 
have gone through similar transitions.  I think you  might even add Battery 
Park City.  New York is just too big.  Any good  idea becomes the victim, 
as some might use that term, of its own success.   So, to the writer, using a 
term of the times, "just suck it up".
I think the High Line is great!  Love it.
Regards,
Burt
 
 
 
Burton M  Fendelman. Esq.
Burton M Fendelman and Associates, LLC
60 Gramercy Park  North - Suite 6 A
New York, NY 10010
Tel: 212-388-0090
Fax:  212-473-5436
E-Mail: bfendelman at aol.com  

 
In a message dated 8/22/2012 9:13:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
bearak at me.com writes:

If you  did not see today's time, you might find the article of some 
interest --  especially those Gothamites who took my co-Not-Y's tour of the former 
freight  rail line on Manhattan's Far West Side.  
Some of us enjoyed one of the restaurant mentioned in the story after our  
tour.  Click _here_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/in-the-shadows-of-the-high-line.html?_r=2&ref=opinion)  or  see below.


 
 
 
 
 
 
Corey B. Bearak,  Esq.
Government & Public Affairs  Counsel
Networker  of the Year| co-chair, GOtham GREEN  | Gotham Towers | LI Legal
P.O. Box 135, Glen Oaks, NY  11004
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[sent from my MacBook  Pro]














 
____________________________________
  
August 21, 2012

Disney World on the  Hudson
By JEREMIAH  MOSS

WHEN the first segment of the _High  Line_ (http://www.thehighline.org/) , 
the now-famous park built atop an old elevated railway on the West  Side of 
Manhattan, _opened_ 
(http://www.thehighline.org/news/2010/01/01/2009-in-pictures)  in  2009, I experienced a moment of excitement. I had often wondered 
what it would  be like to climb that graffiti-marked trestle with its wild 
urban meadow. Of  course, I’d seen the architectural renderings and knew not 
to expect a  wilderness. Still, the idea was enticing: a public park above 
the hubbub, a  contemplative space where nature softens the city’s 
abrasiveness. 
Today it’s difficult to remember that initial feeling.  The High Line has 
become a tourist-clogged catwalk and a catalyst for some of  the most rapid 
gentrification in the city’s history. 
My skepticism took root during my first visit. The  designers had scrubbed 
the graffiti and tamed the wildflowers. Guards  admonished me when my foot 
moved too close to a weed. Was this a park or a  museum? I felt like I was in 
the home of a neatnik with expensive tastes,  afraid I would soil the 
furnishings. 
But the park was a hit. Fashion models strutted up and  down. Shoppers from 
the meatpacking district boutiques commandeered the  limited number of 
benches, surrounded by a phalanx of luxury clothing bags. I  felt underdressed. 
That rarefied state didn’t last, though. As the High  Line’s hype grew, 
the tourists came clamoring. Originally meant for running  freight trains, the 
High Line now runs people, except where those people jam  together like 
spawning salmon crammed in a bottleneck. The park is narrow, and  there are few 
escape routes. I’ve gotten close to a panic attack, stuck in a  pool of 
stagnant tourists at the park’s most congested points. 
Not yet four years old, the High Line has already  become another stop on 
the must-see list for out-of-towners, another chapter  in the story of New 
York City’s transformation into Disney World. According to  the park’s Web 
site, _3.7  million people_ 
(http://thehighline.org/blog/2012/02/22/destination-high-line/)  visited the High Line in 2011, only half of them New  
Yorkers. It’s this overcrowding — not just of the High Line, but of the  streets 
around it — that’s beginning to turn the tide of sentiment. 
Recently, an anonymous local set off a _small  media storm_ 
(http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/30/resident-of-tony-new-york-city-nabe-rants-at-tourists-g
ets-razzed/)  by posting fliers around the park that read: “Attention  High 
Line tourists. West Chelsea is not Times Square. It is not a tourist  
attraction.” A local newspaper talked to a 24-year-old who reported that young  
people who once met for _dates at the park_ 
(http://www.thevillager.com/?p=6156)  now say,  “How about doing something that doesn’t involve the High 
Line?” 
But the problem isn’t just the crowds. It’s that the  park, which will 
eventually snake through more than 20 blocks, is destroying  neighborhoods as 
it grows. 
And it’s doing so by design. While the park began as a  grass-roots 
endeavor — albeit a well-heeled one — it quickly became a tool for  the Bloomberg 
administration’s creation of a new, upscale, corporatized  stretch along the 
West Side. As socialites and celebrities championed the  designer park 
during its early planning stages, whipping community support  into a heady 
froth, the _city  rezoned West Chelsea_ 
(http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/westchelsea/westchelsea1.shtml)  for luxury development in 2005. 
The neighborhood has since been completely remade. Old  buildings fell and 
mountain ranges of glassy towers with names like High Line  519 and HL23 
started to swell — along with prices. 
The New York City Economic Development  Corporation _published a  study_ 
(http://www.nycedc.com/podcast/19-economic-impact-parks)  last year stating 
that before the High Line was redeveloped,  “surrounding residential 
properties were valued 8 percent below the overall  median for Manhattan.” Between 
2003 and 2011, property values near the park  increased 103 percent. 
This is good news for the elite economy but not for  many who have lived 
and worked in the area for decades. It’s easy to forget  that until very 
recently, even with the proliferation of art galleries near  the West Side 
Highway, West Chelsea was a mix of working-class residents and  light-industrial 
businesses. 
But the High Line is washing all that away. D&R  Auto Parts saw its 
_profits  fall_ 
(http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/hard-times-under-the-high-line-for-small-businesses-1.3208587)  by more than 35 percent. Once-thriving 
restaurants like La  Lunchonette and Hector’s diner, a local anchor since 
1949, have lost their  customer base. 
Hardest hit have been the multigenerational businesses  of “gasoline alley.”
 Mostly auto-related establishments that don’t fit into  Michael R. 
Bloomberg’s luxury city vision, several vanished in mere months,  like species in a 
meteoric mass extinction. Bear Auto Shop was out after  decades; the 
Olympia parking garage, after 35 years, closed when its rent  reportedly 
quintupled. 
Brownfeld Auto, on West 29th Street near 10th Avenue,  lost its lease after 
nearly a century. Today it’s another hole in the ground.  Its 
third-generation owner, Alan Brownfeld, blamed the High Line for taking  away the 
thriving business he’d inherited from his grandfather. “It’s for the  city’s 
glamorous people,” he said. 
Mr. Brownfeld is right, for now. But just as the High  Line’s early, trendy 
denizens gave way to touristic hordes, Chelsea’s haute  couture moment may 
be fleeting. As big a brand as Stella McCartney is, she  can’t compete with 
global chains like Sephora, which are muscling into the  area’s commercial 
space. 
Within a few years, the ecosystem disrupted by the High  Line will find a 
new equilibrium. The aquarium-like high rises will be for the  elite, along 
with a few exclusive locales like the Standard Hotel. But the new  locals 
will rarely be found at street level, where chain stores and  tourist-friendly 
restaurants will cater to the crowds of passers-by and  passers-through. 
Gone entirely will be regular New Yorkers, the people who  used to call the 
neighborhood home. But then the High Line was never really  about them. 
 
_Jeremiah Moss_ (http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/)  is the pen  name 
of the author of the blog _Vanishing New York_ 
(http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/) .







=

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