Miracle In New York Harbor
Martin Filler writes: ‘New York City’s High Line of 2003-2013—a bold rethinking of the urban park that quickly became a beloved civic institution—was such a departure from business-as-usual land development in America’s financial capital that it seemed a rare fluke. However, even the most thoughtfully conceived public amenity can be undermined by its own success, as proved by the high-style, high-priced condominium towers that increasingly threaten to turn that verdant elevated promenade into a claustrophobic corridor. Now, a new and in some respects even more extraordinary landscape on Governors Island in New York Harbor is adding another major enrichment to the metropolis. The July 19 opening of the Hills, a ten-acre park on the island’s southern end that has been eight years in the making, brings to a triumphant conclusion the $350-million campaign to turn the disused military installation into a grand green space unlike any other in the city. Something of a topographic miracle has been wrought on this 172-acre islet in Upper New York Bay, less than half a mile from the tip of Lower Manhattan and a quarter mile from Brooklyn.’
