An elevated railway line which once carried freight over the tough streets of New York's Meatpacking District has reopened as the city's newest and trendiest park

They call it The High Line, an old elevated railway that threads its way through abandoned warehouses and bright new glass and concrete buildings on Manhattan's Lower West Side. The last train — which had three freight cars carrying frozen turkeys — was in 1980. After that it was left to vegetate, literally — grasses and even trees grew up between the sleepers.

During its hey-day it was a busy line. It ran northwards from a terminal south of Greenwich Village, passing almost unnoticed through some thirty city blocks before entering the West Side Rail Yard and disappearing underground. Its destination was Albany in up-state New York and beyond. Trains delivered goods to a variety of wholesale food warehouses, running to — and in some cases through — the buildings that they served.

Robert Hammon is a local resident originally from Texas. He had come to love the rusting structure and the cast-iron Art Deco bridges where the tracks run parallel to 10th Avenue. On hearing of plans to demolish it, he turned up at a local council meeting and discovered there was nobody fighting to save it. Travel writer, Joshua David, another fan of the disused line, was also at the meeting. Hammon and David started talking about what could be done — and The Friends of the High Line was born.

Ten years later, the first section of the line has now opened as Manhattan's newest park. When completed it will be one and a half miles long.

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