Friday, July 24, 2015

Is 2016 the time for walking the High Line?


Could 2016 Be the TIME FOR Walking THE High Line?

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            This week I have been reading stories of the 2016 election campaign as if we are already in the year 2016. Candidates are scoring points against other candidates in the contest meant to determine whose ideas will lead America after the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November of 2016. Americans appear to see elections as ideological warfare where one set of ideas wins and the other is defeated and suppressed for a campaign cycle.

            I credit a trip to New York City with helping me to envision politics and government working in a different way from the current ideological warfare system waged by competing armies until a single leader is viewed as left standing following Election Day. In New York City I was impressed by seeing the Statue of Liberty, visiting Ellis Island, standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, sitting near the Flat Iron Building on a perfect evening, and walking along Moore Street in Brooklyn on the way to passing through the red door into Roberta’s for arguably Brooklyn’s finest pizza and definitely a unique cultural experience. But the place which gave me a new vision for the work of government and how politics ought to be done was a walk on Manhattan’s High Line.

            Eighty years ago New York City was growing rapidly. Manhattan's West Side was filled with industry including meat packing plants to the south and the center of America's garment industry further north along the West Side. The area's system of streets and railways could not keep up with the population growth or the movement of freight from the city with the largest manufacturing base in America. City leaders recognized an additional railway freight line was needed as much as additional congestion in the transportation system needed to be avoided. The innovative solution was the building of an elevated freight line that quickly became known as "the High Line."

            For fifty years the High Line served Manhattan’s West side industries. But by the 1980’s the garment industry and packing industries were less centralized and manufacturing was less concentrated in Manhattan's West Side. The High Line was no longer profitable. One final run of the old freight train was made carrying a small load of frozen turkeys. The High Line was scheduled for dismantling and demolition. But one individual sought to block the plans in court. He envisioned turning the High Line into a public use facility. For twenty years the High Line’s future was discussed and debated. An organization known as the Friends of the High Line was formed and this organization began sponsoring meetings to solicit ideas from the public regarding how a High Line open to public usage might be created and what the features might be created into a park and walking path that would become of the abandoned High Line. In the past few years the walking path has become one of New York City's favorite parks and a few photographs show the successful results of its planning and implementation.

 

 


There are places where people can relax near young trees now growing on the High Line.

 


The elevated freight line gives an optimal view of a NYC icon – the wooden water tower

 


In a broad spot - street performers look to gather an audience + others could not care less about an audience.

 


Artists paint a city scene along the path and visitors imagine the scene once the paint will dry.

 


The elevated line gives a unique perspective to a busy street beneath

 


Who imagined a section of an old freight line could be turned into a lush garden?

 

            The High Line has generated in my mind a fresh perspective of government. Our national composition is diverse. Elections seem designed to elevate or minimize the perspectives of Conservatives and liberals; libertarians and progressives; Christians and secularists as well as people believing other faiths. Our varied ethnicities represent sometimes very different American experiences of history. The High Line led me to imagine how our nation’s political system would be affected if our elections were treated less as battlefields meant to empower one set of ideas while putting to death losing sets of ideas. What if instead, an election was seen as a precursor to government's attempt to gather our citizenry's many ideas and perspectives as our nation sought to come together to create something to benefit our entire society.

            Presently we are a nation which seems either to worship or to mourn our nation’s past. Conservatives wish to express their love for America as they imagine its place its history. Progressives tend to lament the destructive problems of our past and how that past has left us all with lingering issues complicating both life in the present and life into the future. Have we become a culture now forever to be stuck in debates about the glories or shortcomings of our past?


             Perhaps it is time to gather ideas for the future rather than to lament or glorify our past. The friends of the High Line probably included people who viewed their community's past with nostalgia. Perhaps the processing plants and garment factories seemed to symbolize a New York City that would never be recovered. But a new generation meant there needed to be a new discussion if the old line had more than a place in the nostalgia of New Yorkers. Could the old freight line be a testament to history, to a new generation, and also to Manhattan's future? The friends of the High Line found a way to remember history while creating something wonderful and beautiful for the present and future.


          We Americans have much to build and perhaps it is time to once more gather our thoughts for building the future of America. How will we rebuild and modernize America’s decaying and sometimes archaic infrastructure? We need to upgrade transportation systems, the electrical grid, and our water and sewage systems. As a society we need to consider how to best provide prosperity for all groups of people while promoting a system which both promotes societal wholeness and encourages individual initiative and development. Will we work towards constructing a system providing energy which also serves to promote the health of our nation's varied ecological systems? How do we foster a society characterized by diversity of a thriving varied communities, an encouragement of individuality, and a promotion of diversity which allows equality without resorting to dehumanizing forms of compulsion driven conformity? It would seem from the present political conversation that after an election the winner takes and all and the loser starts building for the next election. Those who triumph feel no need to consult those who are imagined to be silenced in defeat.

            To be honest in recent years I lost my will to force myself to vote in the America's polarized political process. I felt as if I were choosing to vote in a least destructive manner which ever way I voted. But walking along the High Line gave me a new way to determine the one for whom I will vote. I will vote for the candidate who I most believe will on election night be able to look at his opponent with integrity and honesty and say - “I believe that with this election complete I must do everything in my power to also represent your ideas and beliefs and desires at the table of decision making. I believe that as a nation we need all of our constituencies represented when determining how we will proceed as a nation when determining the projects which will shape the future of every person in this nation. I believe that no voice should be left unrepresented if we are concerned to build a nation's future as a work of accomplishment in the name of the people.” Manhattan’s High Line provides me with a vision of what I am looking for from my political candidates in 2016.