A friend pointed out to me that New York, the most vertical city in the world, is taking its next big step in moving more of our life to the sky. What does this mean for New York communities? Perhaps the High Line Park, a new vein of transport and recreation alive with culture and art, is a glimpse of what our cities might look like in the future. If you just pictured Bruce Willis’ chase scene in Fifth Element, you might not be that far off. If parks can take to the sky, what’s next? Maybe the next hip nabe won’t be down the block, but above our heads.

From the mid-1800s to 1929, collisions between street-level traffic and freight trains on the West Side of Manhattan were so frequent that 10th Avenue was known as “Death Ave.” After years of heated debate the City agreed to build a 13-mile raised track stretching high over three industrial neighborhoods now known as the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen. But it wasn’t long before interstate trucking wiped out rail transport—in 1980, a train carrying frozen turkeys made the final, anticlimactic High Line trip. Before the abandoned rail could be doomed to demolition, Friends of the High Line, a local non-profit, gained preservation and public space rights from the City. In 2003, they launched an international design competition to reinvent the old rail, and last summer the first portions of this magical place were finally opened to the public.

What does the High Line look like now? A far cry from the decaying skeleton it once was (but not without a nod to its original form) this gorgeous “park”—for lack of a word truer to the urban creativity it embodies—is somewhat of a concrete canal, Manhattan’s communal rooftop patio, a peaceful passage through the sky that epitomizes the creative changes in the nabes below. Beneath the tracks, from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, warehouses and factories left over from industrial days have been turned into galleries, restaurants and residences in recent decades. Now one of the greatest arts districts in the world has a new dimension of alternative space.

Spend an afternoon here lounging on a rolling deck chair and admiring the city from a fresh angle; savor a scoop of gelato as you walk among gardens inspired by the flowers, shrubs and grasses that grew wild on the unused tracks for 25 years; come at night for guided star gazing; catch one of the many kid-friendly walking tours; enjoy the free live music of a “wandering band;” take part in an open-air fitness class or experience magnificent public art.

Stephen Vitiello’s sound installation, A Bell for Every Minute, can be heard throughout the 14th St pedestrian tunnel. An individual bell sound–ranging from the iconic New York Stock Exchange bell to bike bells and neighborhood churches–rings every minute and a chorus plays on the hour. Listeners are encouraged to follow the provided map that identifies the location of each bell, allowing them to engage with the park and its connection to the surrounding city. Also on display is Richard Galpin’s Viewing Station, where visitors can look through a device that abstracts the already novel view of the Manhattan skyline, Valerie Hegarty’s transformative painting, Autumn on the Hudson Valley with Tree Branches, and Spencer Finch’s images of water from the Hudson River in The River That Flows Both Ways.

Access to the High Line is possible via any of these points:

• Gansevoort Street
• 14th Street (elevator)
• 16th Street (elevator)
• 18th Street
• 20th Street

photos courtesy of MartinPalmer and JoeVare