The Highline is an old, elevated rail line that runs for a mile and a half right through Manhattan. And it was originally a freight line that ran down 10th Ave. And it became known as "Death Avenue" because so many people were run over by the trains that the railroad hired a guy on horseback to run in front, and he became known as the "West Side Cowboy." But even with a cowboy, about one person a month was killed and run over. So they elevated it. They built it 30 ft. in the air, right through the middle of the city. But with the rise of interstate trucking, it was used less and less. And by 1980, the last train rode. It was a train loaded with frozen turkeys -- they say, at Thanksgiving -- from the meatpacking district. And then it was abandoned.
High Line je stará nadzemná železničná trať, ktorá vedie 2,5 km priamo naprieč Manhattanom. Pôvodne to bola trať pre nákladnú dopravu, ktorá sa tiahla dole Desiatou avenue a stala sa známou ako „Ulica smrti“, pretože vlaky prešli tak veľa ľudí, že železnice najali chlapíka na koni, aby cválal pred vlakom a ten sa stal známym ako „Cowboy z West Side“. Aj napriek prítomnosti cowboya však vlak prešiel a usmrtil približne jedného človeka za mesiac, a tak túto trať zdvihli nad zem. Vybudovali ju 9 m vo vzduchu priamo uprostred mesta, ale s nárastom medzištátnej nákladnej autodopravy sa využívala stále menej a menej a v roku 1980 po nej prešiel posledný vlak. Bol to vlak naložený mrazenými moriakmi, hovorí sa, že na Deň vďakyvzdania, zo štvrte mäsového priemyslu a trať potom ostala opustená.
And I live in the neighborhood, and I first read about it in the New York Times, in an article that said it was going to be demolished. And I assumed someone was working to preserve it or save it and I could volunteer, but I realized no one was doing anything. I went to my first community board meeting -- which I'd never been to one before -- and sat next to another guy named Joshua David, who's a travel writer. And at the end of the meeting, we realized we were the only two people that were sort of interested in the project; most people wanted to tear it down. So we exchanged business cards, and we kept calling each other and decided to start this organization, Friends of the High Line. And the goal at first was just saving it from demolition, but then we also wanted to figure out what we could do with it.
Žijem v jej susedstve a prvýkrát som o nej čítal v denníku The New York Times, kde sa písalo o tom, že sa bude búrať. Domnieval som sa, že niekto pracoval na jej udržaní alebo záchrane a mohol by som sa zapojiť ako dobrovoľník, ale uvedomil som si, že nikto nič nerobil. Išiel som na schôdzu mestského výboru, na ktorej som nikdy predtým nebol a sadol som si vedľa chlapíka s menom Joshua David, ktorý je cestopiscom. Na konci schôdze sme si uvedomili, že sme jediní dvaja ľudia, ktorí sa o tento projekt nejako zaujímali. Väčšina ľudí chcela trať strhnúť. Vymenili sme si vizitky, volali sme si a rozhodli sa, že založíme túto organizáciou, Priatelia trate High Line. Prvým cieľom bolo jednoducho zachrániť ju pred zbúraním, ale potom sme tiež chceli prísť na to, čo by sme s ňou mohli spraviť.
And what first attracted me, or interested me, was this view from the street -- which is this steel structure, sort of rusty, this industrial relic. But when I went up on top, it was a mile and a half of wildflowers running right through the middle of Manhattan with views of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty and the Hudson River. And that's really where we started, the idea coalesced around, let's make this a park, and let's have it be sort of inspired by this wildscape.
To, čo ma najprv priťahovalo alebo zaujímalo, bol tento pohľad z ulice. Je to tá oceľová konštrukcia, trochu hrdzavá, pozostatok časov priemyslu. Keď som vyšiel hore, bolo tam 2,5 km divých kvetov, ktoré sa ťahali priamo stredom Manhattanu s výhľadom na Empire State Building, Sochu slobody a rieku Hudson. Bolo to naozaj tu, kde to celé začalo a vznikla myšlienka: „Spravme z toho park a trochu sa inšpirujme touto divočinou.“
At the time, there was a lot of opposition. Mayor Giuliani wanted to tear it down. I'm going to fast-forward through a lot of lawsuits and a lot of community engagement. Mayor Bloomberg came in office, he was very supportive, but we still had to make the economic case. This was after 9/11; the city was in tough times. So we commissioned an economic feasibility study to try to make the case. And it turns out, we got those numbers wrong. We thought it would cost 100 million dollars to build. So far it's cost about 150 million. And the main case was, this is going to make good economic sense for the city. So we said over a 20-year time period, the value to the city in increased property values and increased taxes would be about 250 million. That was enough. It really got the city behind it. It turns out we were wrong on that. Now people estimate it's created about a half a billion dollars, or will create about a half a billion dollars, in tax revenues for the city. We did a design competition, selected a design team. We worked with them to really create a design that was inspired by that wildscape. There's three sections.
V tom čase sme tu narážali na tvrdý odpor. Starosta Giuliani chcel tú trať strhnúť. Rýchlo sa posuniem v čase cez množstvo žalôb a komunitnej angažovanosti. Do úradu nastúpil starosta Bloomerg a bol veľmi nápomocný, ale stále sme museli vyriešiť ekonomickú stránku veci. Bolo to po 11. septembri 2001 a mesto sa nachádzalo v ťažkých časoch. Objednali sme si štúdiu o ekonomickej realizovateľnosti, aby sme sa pokúsili udať dobré dôvody. Ukázalo sa, že sme mali zlé čísla. Mysleli sme si, že výstavba by stála 100 miliónov dolárov. Doteraz stála už asi 150 miliónov. Hlavné bolo, že to pre mesto bude mať dobrý ekonomický význam. Povedali sme teda, že v období 20 rokov by hodnota pre mesto vo zvýšenej hodnote majetku a zvýšených daniach predstavovala asi 250 miliónov. Stačilo to. Mesto sa za ňu skutočne postavilo. Ukázalo sa, že sme sa zmýlili aj tu. Teraz sa odhaduje, že vytvorila asi pol miliardy dolárov alebo ich pre mesto vytvorí v podobe daňových príjmov. Usporiadali sme dizajnovú súťaž a vybrali dizajnový tím. Spolupracovali sme s nimi, aby sme naozaj vytvorili dizajn, ktorý sa inšpiroval tou divočinou. Sú tam tri úseky.
We opened the fist section in 2009. It's been successful beyond our dreams. Last year we had about two million people, which is about 10 times what we ever estimated. This is one of my favorite features in section one. It's this amphitheater right over 10th Ave. And the first section ends at 20th St. right now. The other thing, it's generated, obviously, a lot of economic value; it's also inspired, I think, a lot of great architecture. There's a point, you can stand here and see buildings by Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, Neil Denari. And the Whitney is moving downtown and is building their new museum right at the base of the High Line. And this has been designed by Renzo Piano. And they're going to break ground in May.
Prvý sme otvorili v roku 2009. Jeho úspech ďaleko presiahol naše sny. Minulý rok sme tu mali 2 milióny ľudí, čo je asi 10-krát viac ako sme vôbec odhadovali. Toto je jeden z mojich obľúbených prvkov na prvom úseku. Je to tento amfiteáter priamo nad Desiatou avenue. Prvý úsek teraz končí na Dvadsiatej ulici. Ako ďalšiu vec to očividne vytvorilo veľkú ekonomickú hodnotu. Myslím si, že to inšpirovalo mnoho veľkolepých architektonických prvkov. Je tu miesto, kde sa môžete postaviť a uvidíte budovy Franka Gehryho, Jeana Nouvela, Shigeru Bana a Neila Denariho. Whitneyeho múzeum amerického umenia sa sťahuje do centra a buduje svoje nové múzeum priamo pri základoch trate High Line. Navrhol ju Renzo Piano a prvý výkop spravia v máji.
And we've already started construction on section two. This is one of my favorite features, this flyover where you're eight feet off the surface of the High Line, running through a canopy of trees. The High Line used to be covered in billboards, and so we've taken a playful take where, instead of framing advertisements, it's going to frame people in views of the city. This was just installed last month. And then the last section was going to go around the rail yards, which is the largest undeveloped site in Manhattan. And the city has planned -- for better or for worse -- 12 million square-feet of development that the High Line is going to ring around.
Výstavbu sme začali už aj na druhom úseku. Toto je jeden z mojich obľúbených prvkov, tento mostík, kde sa nachádzate 2,5 m nad povrchom trate High Line a môžete bežať pomedzi koruny stromov. Trať High Line bola pokrytá pútačmi, a tak sme sa tu trochu vyhrali a namiesto umiestnenia reklám budú na týchto pútačoch ľudia pri pohľade na mesto. Tento tu bol umiestnený len minulý mesiac. Posledný úsek mal ísť okolo koľajiska, ktoré je najväčším nerozvinutým miestom na Manhattane. Mesto plánovalo za všetkých okolností vytvoriť na 1 km2 zástavbu, okolo ktorej by sa tiahol park High Line.
But what really, I think, makes the High Line special is the people. And honestly, even though I love the designs that we were building, I was always frightened that I wouldn't really love it, because I fell in love with that wildscape -- and how could you recreate that magic? But what I found is it's in the people and how they use it that, to me, makes it so special. Just one quick example is I realized right after we opened that there were all these people holding hands on the High Line. And I realized New Yorkers don't hold hands; we just don't do that outside. But you see that happening on the High Line, and I think that's the power that public space can have to transform how people experience their city and interact with each other.
To, čo však podľa môjho názoru robí park High Line výnimočným, sú ľudia. Úprimne, aj keď milujem plán, ktorý realizujeme, vždy som sa bál toho, či ho ľudia budú mať radi, pretože som sa do tej divočiny zamiloval a ako môžete znovu vytvoriť také čaro? Čo som však našiel, bolo v ľuďoch a v tom, ako tento park využívali. To ho pre mňa robí výnimočným. Spomeniem len jeden krátky príklad. Hneď po jeho otvorení som si uvedomil, že v parku High Line sa všetci tí ľudia držia za ruky a došlo mi, že Newyorčania sa za ruky nedržia. Jednoducho to vonku nerobíme, ale vidíte, že v parku High Line sa to deje a myslím si, že to je tá sila, ktorú môže mať verejné priestranstvo na zmenu toho, ako ľudia vnímajú svoje mesto a na ich vzájomnú interakciu.
Thanks.
Ďakujem.
(Applause)
(Potlesk)