New York Guide
Chelsea
A squat grid of renovated tenements, rowhouses, and warehouses, Chelsea lies west of Broadway between 14th and 30th streets, though most consider the area between 14th and 23rd streets to be the heart of the neighborhood. Over the past few decades, Chelsea has become quite commercial, influenced greatly by the arrival of a large gay community in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today, its districts are filled with affluent townhouses whose inhabitants relish the luxury of extra living space. Stores and restaurants pepper the scene, along with excellent cutting-edge art galleries and increasingly up-market real estate.
New York's drifting art scene has been extremely influential in the neighborhood's transformation. In the early 1990s, a number of respected galleries began making use of the large spaces available in the low-rise warehouses of Chelsea's western reaches, securing the area's cultural edge. This influx has been counterbalanced by the steadily expanding presence of retail superstores, especially along Sixth Avenue, and the building of the Chelsea Piers mega-sized sports complex. For years now, the neighborhood has been crowded with shoppers, restaurant-goers, and the like, and, with the advent of the High Line, it shows no signs of quieting down.
To begin your visit to Chelsea, take the #1, #2, or #3 train to 14th Street and Seventh Avenue, or take the #C or #E to 14th and Eighth.
The High Line
Website: www.thehighline.org
One of New York's most ambitious urban regeneration projects, the High Line opened in 2009 as a unique city park, slicing through the high-rises on a former elevated rail line. Constructed between 1929 and 1934, the line was effectively abandoned in 1980, and has been a rusting eyesore ever since. In 1999, a group of local business-owners joined together to press for the High Line's preservation, and with the city finally on board, construction began in 2006. The first section will run from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, with phase two eventually extending 1.5 miles up to West 33rd Street in midtown. Access points will rise from street level about every two blocks. The park's innovative design includes pathways made of smooth concrete planks, tapered at the ends to allow plants to push up through the gaps, the reintroduction of steel rail tracks to symbolize links with the past, and cutting-edge landscaping conceived by Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, combining trees, flowers and liberal use of the local wild plants that first colonized the ruined tracks. The Whitney Museum of American Art is planning a new museum at the southern entrance, to be designed by Renzo Piano (most famous for the Pompidou Center in Paris), while the plush Standard Hotel will straddle the park at Little West 12th Street.