“It’s a pity we’re doing this now. It must look so nice when its all green.”
“It’s ok. You know how much I love dead things.”
Danielle and I had just entered the northern end of the High Line, a 2.3 km (1.45 mi) concrete trail built on an abandoned freight railway track that served Manhattan’s industrial center from the 1930s to the 1980s. Today, it is a public park that extends 22 blocks above the West Side, from 34th Street down to Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District.
My sister’s giggle was part delight and part surprise – the way you laugh when you forget and remember someone all at once. It had been a year since we last saw each other, and a year since I had last been in New York.
I’ve never actually been in the city for any other season – marshmallow streets lined with skeleton trees are just how I know it. And even though it was unusually warm for late December with not a snowflake in sight, it was still very much winter. But as I soon came to realise, Manhattan’s most innovative park is a treat in all seasons.