Robert Hammond

Construction seems to be moving along on the High Line, the 1930s rail viaduct in Chelsea that's being converted to a park, as we were given a tour earlier this week and snapped a few photos along the way. Section 1, which runs from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, is slated to open before the end of the year, and, as pictured, the walkways are being put into place with the vegetation to follow [preliminary renderings of Section 1 are available here].

Later this month, Friends of the High Line, the mastermind group behind the whole venture, is planning to release designs for Section 2, which runs up to 28th Street. Section 3, which runs into the West Side rail yards, will be designed by the Related Companies as part of its development of the yards.

More photos after the jump.  read more »

Tishman Speyer, the newly-chosen developers of the West Side rail yards, would like to eliminate the northernmost spur of the High Line.

Friends of the High Line president and co-founder Robert Hammond doesn't believe it's going to happen—after all, he's already overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the conversion of the elevated railway into a new city park.

When he first went to Mayor Bloomberg, he said, "The Mayor said 'Don't show us pretty pictures. We've got enough parks, we can't pay for them all.'"

So Hammond showed the city it could make money off the High Line—or at least, property owners in West Chelsea could and some other money would trickle down.

"I've seen this movie before," Hammond said today of Tishman Speyer's plans, speaking at the 2nd Annual Trends in New York City Land Use and Real Estate Development conference down at New York Law School this afternoon. "I think we'll get the whole Line," he said.  read more »