DECONSTRUCTING THE HIGH LINE
Thursday, March 5th, 5:00-8:00pm
The New School, Wollman Hall, 65 W. 11th St., 5th Fl.
The High Line, an innovative promenade created on a disused elevated railway in Manhattan, is widely recognized as among the most iconic urban landmarks of the 21st century. It has stimulated public interest in landscape design while simultaneously re-integrating an industrial relic into the everyday life of New York City. Since its opening in 2009, this unique greenway has exceeded expectations in terms of attracting visitors, investment, and property development to Manhattan’s West Side, and is widely celebrated as a monument to community-led activism, adaptive re-use of urban infrastructure, and innovative ecological design. It has also inspired a worldwide proliferation of similar proposals seeking to capitalize on the repurposing of disused urban infrastructure for postindustrial revitalization.
Providing a much-needed critical perspective, this interdisciplinary symposium will interrogate the High Line’s relation to public space, creative practice, urban renewal, ecology, and public policy. The event brings together scholars and practitioners from urban studies, geography, cultural analysis, art, and architecture.
First Panel: The Contexts of an Elevated Urbanism
Joseph Heathcott, Moderator
Urbanist at The New School
Christoph Lindner
Cultural theorist at University of Amsterdam and editor of the book series “Cities and Cultures” for the university’s press
Şevin Yildiz
Assistant Professor of Architecture at Barnard College and Columbia University
Erika Svendsen
Research social scientist for the U.S. Forest Service
Second Panel: The High Line from Neighborhood to Global Stage
Brian Rosa, Moderator
Geographer and faculty member at the Department of Urban Studies, Queens College, CUNY and co-editor with Christoph Lindner of the forthcoming book Deconstructing the High Line
Julian Brash
Anthropologist at Montclair State University, author of Bloomberg’s New York
Scott Larson
Geographer and faculty member at Department of Urban Studies, Queens College, CUNY and author of Building Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind
Danya Sherman, Masters of City Planning candidate at MIT and former Director of Public Programs, Education & Community Engagement at Friends of the High Line
Deconstructing the High Line is co-sponsored by the School of Undergraduate Studies at The New School, the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at The New School, the Department of Urban Studies at Queens College-CUNY, and the Amsterdam Center for Globalisation Studies.
Those attending are invited to join a reception immediately following the symposium to mark the publication of Christoph Lindner’s new book on New York City, Imagining New York City: Literature, Urbanism and the Visual Arts (Oxford University Press, 2015).