Everyone’s favorite public park on a refurbished industrial railroad track is one step closer to guaranteeing preservation of its entire northern extension. While the second portion of West Chelsea’s High Line park (from 20th Street to 30th Street) is slated for a tentative 2010 opening, the next stretch, which snakes around the West Side Rail Yards along 30th Street then along the Hudson (as pictured) and back East along 33rd Street, has been something of a gray area for years. Today, however, the High Line Blog reports that the city is beginning the precarious process of purchasing those upper stretches from CSX Transportation Inc., which owns the property and with the help of the MTA and Empire State Development Corporation, which own the land below—yes, it’s going to be complicated.
Of course, buying the rail bed doesn’t mean that the city will have the money to refurbish or maintain it anytime soon. At the very least, though, that stretch of the High Line will be protected from the greedy developers jostling for the rights to build a massive office-condo development on top of the adjacent West Side Rail Yards, some of whom have suggested tearing down some portions of the rail bridge. (Curbed)