Deconstructing the High Line

CHRISTOPH LINDNER is a professor and dean of architecture and allied arts at the University of Oregon in Eugene. His recent books include Imagining New York City: Literature, Urbanism, and the Visual Arts, as well as the edited volumes Global Garbage, Inert Cities, and Paris-Amsterdam Underground.BRIAN ROSA is an assistant professor of urban studies (Queens College) and geography (The Graduate Center) at the City University of New York.

• List of Figures and TablesAcknowledgmentsHigh Line TimelineIntroduction: From Elevated Railway to Urban ParkBrian Rosa and Christoph LindnerPart I    Envisioning the High LineChapter 1    Hunt’s HauntsJames CornerChapter 2    Community Engagement, Equity, and the High LineDanya ShermanChapter 3    Loving the High Line: Infrastructure, Architecture, and the Politics of Space in the Mediated CityAlan SmartPart II    Gentrification and the Neoliberal CityChapter 4    Parks for Profit: Public Space and Inequality in New York CityKevin LoughranChapter 5    Parks (In)EquityJulian BrashChapter 6    Retro-Walking New YorkChristoph LindnerPart III    Urban Political EcologiesChapter 7    The Garden on the MachineTom BakerChapter 8    The Urban Sustainability Fix and the Rise of the Conservancy ParkPhil Birge-LibermanChapter 9    Of Success and Succession: A Queer Urban Ecology of the High LineDarren J. PatrickPart IV    The High Line EffectChapter 10    A High Line for Queens: Celebrating Diversity or Displacing It?Scott LarsonChapter 11    Programming Difference on Rotterdam’s HofbogenDaan WesselmanChapter 12    Public Space and Terrain Vague on SÃo Paulo’s MinhocÃo: The High Line in TranslationNate MillingtonBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

"Friends of the High Line has also been trying to make up for lost time, launching arts and jobs initiatives with residents of nearby public housing. Danya Sherman, former director of public programs, education, and community engagement for Friends of the High Line, details these efforts in her contribution to Deconstructing the High Line, a series of essays by academics, architects, and those involved in the making of the elevated park... Before the High Line proffered progressivism through its programming, other contributors to the book note, it cast cold, hard capitalism in concrete. In recent years, mountains of ink have been spilled about how the ills facing contemporary New York and cities around the globe have been exacerbated by the High Line's complicity ... Other books about the High Line either don't engage these critiques or only do so through the eyes of Hammond and Friends of the High Line co-founder Josua David." (The Village Voice) "Deconstructing the High Line is a timely, insightful, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary study that dares to critically examine the widely celebrated High Line from a variety of social, political, and cultural perspectives." - Dora Apel (author of Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline) "At last! A smart book on the High Line that places it critically in both a local and a global frame! Since the High Line has quickly become a global pace maker among local place makers, this critical, multidimensional view is absolutely necessary to understand the political forces and aesthetic displacements that are reshaping our cities and our lives." - Sharon Zukin (author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places) "This book teaches us that an all-inclusive approach from the point of view of urban theory is needed to better understand the effects of projects of urban, social and economic 'improvement.'"  (Urbanistica informazioni)