Posts tagged #High Line

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 2

Flashback Friday

Memories

Second Quarter of 2019, and it dawned on me how different my life looks now, compared to when I still lived in Alaska. Life back then, in Alaska, was all about snow, skiing, camping, fieldwork and the deep deep boreal forest. 40 below in the wintertime, smoke from wildfires mixed with mosquitos from hell in the summertime. Quite the contrast from big city life in New York City and Manhattan. If you are interested in seeing the contrast between life in Alaska, transitioning into life in Wisconsin before continuing with the rearview mirror of 2019 you can check out these posts below!

April

April came with Cherry blossoms in Central Park, and I went down there the day before we flew to Denver, Colorado. I reflected over the fact that spring is so different in different parts of the US, April in Alaska is very different compared to Wisconsin and New York. In Denver, we saw some good friends and their kitty cat. Denver has a lot of nice graffiti almost everywhere, so I might do a separate blog post highlighting that at a later stage. We, of course, went to a few breweries, bars and managed to get a hike in before it was time to get back to NYC. In NYC I had a day or so before a friend from Stockholm arrived. We did a couple of touristy things, Chinatown, the Highline and Columbia University. At the end of April Spring was definitely full-on. I got a couple of walks in Central Park, W and I went to East Broadway mall in Chinatown again for some seafood so we could cook a nice dinner. Also, at the end of April, I finally got a job!!

May

    May in NYC definitely mean summertime. I explored the area around my new workplace, which is about 40 minutes north of the city. We went to a Yankees baseball game in the Bronx one evening, our first real baseball game together, since the last one (in Minneapolis) turned into a non-baseball baseball game. We also did a short trip up to the Catskills, and I made more no-knead bread. Basically the best and easiest bread you can make. Garvey just keeps getting larger and larger, and even now in 2020 he is still growing. I saw some wildlife in Morningside park one afternoon, a raccoon. They are usually nocturnal so don’t really know what was up with that fella. We hosted a taco evening at our apartment, a good excuse to clean the whole place! W’s brother and girlfriend came to visit us too for about a week, and we had some picnics in the park, of course, managed to squeeze in a Broadway show and some bar excursions in East village. W and I went to see the goats in Riverside park and then May turned into June.

June

   We again went down to the East Village, but this time we walked a fair bit beforehand. We followed Riverside Park and then took the train south. Another evening we bought some food at an Italian deli and went to Central Park. We also went to one of our favorite bars, Mess Hall. More explorations in the city, especially now that we got a second income. Another picnic in the park and I also went down to Battery Park for the last beer with a friend before she moved to San Fran! I spotted a deer outside the window of my lab and W and I had an after-work beer one evening.

Posted on January 10, 2020 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror, Life in New York and tagged rearviewmirror New York New York City Spring Summer Big City Life New York Life Catskills East Village Riverside Park Denver Colorado Hiking Columbia University High Line Central Park Gotham City rearviewmirror2019 2020 Park Life in NYC.

Walking the Line - The High Line

Adventure Tuesday

Cityscapes

A couple of weekends ago we slowly got ourselves ready for the day and thought about what we should do. I believe it’s easy to get blinded by all the different things a city like New York has to offer. Now, we aren’t the best people maybe to explore and find new areas in a city landscape, but we are working on it. So that morning a few weekends ago I said that I wanted to walk the High Line, because I have heard so much about it, from friends but also elsewhere. There are tons of articles online about “moving to New York”, “10 best things to do in New York” along with “how to cope with a too hot apartment in the wintertime”. The last one might be put into a blogpost later on, together with a ton of other things that can happen in an apartment in New York City. Anyway, walking the High Line seemed like an excellent idea and was a regular “attraction” on many “to do” lists. On top of that, we hadn’t been to any Trader Joes since we moved here, and there are couple of those on the more southern part of Manhattan, well, think mid- to southern part of Manhattan, and one very close to the end of the High Line (well the more northern end of the High Line).

A little bit of History

We actually didn’t walk all of the High Line. The southern end is around Washington St and Gansevoort St. We took the train south from where we live and got off around Lexington and 14th street and walked along 14th street through Chelsea Market before getting on the High Line. Chelsea Market that once was a National Biscuit Company was apparently greatly benefited by the construction of the High Line, which in many areas cut right through the buildings. All I knew about the High Line is that it used to be an old freight rail line that now has been converted to a nice park. It’s only 1.45 miles long, so extremely short. The neighborhoods surrounding that short stretch of rail line got together to save the rail line from demolition a few years back. It all started way back in the mid 1800’s when the railroad run by New York City Central Railroad was becoming a hazard to pedestrians, and by 1910 more than 500 people had been killed by the railroad. It wasn’t until 1924 when the idea of a elevated rail line came to the drawing table, but the very first train to go on these rails didn’t have its virgin trip in 1933. If you are interested in more of the history, but also pictures from the High Line when it was still in use by the freight line you can go to the webpage for the High Line.

Gardens and architecture

What really caught our attention was not the park itself with all the grasses and other plants (and sometimes even trees), but the architecture surrounding the actual High Line. I am not sure what we had hoped to find on the High Line, plantwise, but we were not that impressed. The design of the High Line itself is still very nice. The benches and boardwalks and the fencing are of a “flowy” design but it turns out that some of the design is a real hazard. We saw an elderly woman accidentally stumble on some of the design features on the ground as she was trying to take a perfect picture. Once I noticed that, it really struck me how inconvenient that part of the design really was, especially in an area like this where everyone wants to snap a picture. We of course do not do that great with crowded places but still managed to have a pretty good time. There seem to be a wide range of popularity of the actual High Line. Where we entered was fairly busy, and walking north suddenly became very crowded. But as with everything it always comes and goes in waves. The amount of people sometimes trickled down, and then suddenly increased again throughout the whole walk. The least people I think we encountered at the very end of the High Line. That part is not yet fully developed so maybe that was the reason for that.

Skyscrapers

Something that is pretty cool to watch are all these skyscrapers south of Central Park. The all are very eye catching, especially since they are most of the time reflective, and show you this lovely blue color on a sunny day, like the one we had.

Have you ever been to New York and walked the High Line? What did you think?

Posted on November 27, 2018 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Life in New York and tagged High Line New York City NYC NYC Parks Big City Life city life walking Park Skyscrapers utlandssvensk 2018 Life in NYC.