Low Line

The High Line is a public park that was made from an abandoned elevated railroad on the west side of Manhattan. Two proposed New York City public parks grabbed the “Low Line” moniker.
   
In August 2009, a no-longer-in-use railroad running through the Mott Haven section of the Bronx was proposed for a “Low Line” park. On September 16, 2011, New York magazine dubbed a proposed park in an abandoned trolley terminal beneath Delancey Street as the “Low Line.”
 
 
NYTimes.com—City Room
August 17, 2009, 5:25 pm
A Smelly Bronx ‘Swamp’ Goes Unwanted
By SEWELL CHAN
(...)
COMMENTS
August 17, 2009
11:26 pm
how about creating a new park? – we could call it “the low line”.
— Steven Kopstein
 
YourNabe.com
City drains Mott Haven swamp
150,000 gallons of stagnant water removed
by DANIEL BEEKMAN
Thursday, August 27, 2009 10:48 AM EDT
(...)
Nash knows the story. The railroad handled freight until ten years ago, he said. The railroad belonged to Penn Central and was sold to another firm. The firm rented it to the MTA and to CSX until 2004. It appears that the property belongs to Metropolitan 47 LLC but that firm has failed to attend Department of Health hearings.
(...)
Mott Haven residents want to transform the railroad into a greenway. The city recently opened The High Line, a park built on an elevated railroad, in Manhattan. It should open The Low Line in Mott Haven, open space advocate Harry Bubbins said.
     
New York magazine
The Low Line
A plan for a new park banks on subterranean photosynthesis.
By Justin Davidson Published Sep 16, 2011
Land for parks is so scarce in Manhattan that the city’s most generous new green space, the High Line, occupies an elevated railway. Now three urbanist ­entrepreneurs—James Ramsey, a satellite engineer turned architect; Dan Barasch, an executive at the social innovation network PopTech; and the pedigreed money manager R. Boykin Curry IV—hope to mine roughly two acres of green space under the city streets.* Much as Joshua David and Robert Hammond transformed an old freight line into an attractive strip of greenery, this trio wants to convert the vast and dank trolley terminal that has sat disused on the Lower East Side for six decades into a park that they are calling Delancey Underground but will inevitably be known as the Low Line.
 
A Walk in the Park
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Underground Delancey Street Park Proposed - Another Low Line?
Mott Haven resident Wally Nash points to the The Low Line near St. Mary’s Park in the Bronx. While some proponents of the Delancey Street project have already termed it The Low Line - they may have some competition for that subterranean moniker from some northern neighbors on mainland USA. For years residents of the Mott Haven section of the Bronx have pressed officials to convert an abandoned freight railroad into a greenway they have dubbed The Low Line. The line runs from Bruckner Boulevard and E. 142nd Street to St. Mary’s Street, under St. Mary’s Park to E. 149th Street.
 
Gothamist
Meet “The Low Line,” The LES’s Potential Underground Park
By Garth Johnston in Arts and Events on September 19, 2011 9:55 AM
Turning abandoned elevated railways into parks is so Aughts: the new hottness for public parks is clearly below ground, people. Morlocks needs their green spaces too! To that end, three gentlemen are trying to persuade the city to turn an abandoned trolley terminal beneath Delancey Street into a park. They hope to fill the the vast cavern with sunlight thanks to fancy fiber optic cables. New York magazine has already dubbed the project the Low Line—despite another “Low Line” park still being pushed in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx—but the group angling for the below-grade gardens creation want to call it the Delancey Underground.
 
Bowery Boogie
Plans for Delancey Underground “Low Line” Presented to CB3
7:48am September 22nd, 2011
As reported earlier this week, the Lower East Side is now considering its own subterranean version of Chelseas’s High Line called the Delancey Underground. James Ramsey and Dan Barasch, the two entrepreneurs behind this innovative “Low Line” project, presented their bold plan to Community Board 3 during last night’s Land Use committee meeting. Representatives of local politicians including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver were also in attendance for the presentation.
 
Ramsey and Barasch together envision an underground community greenspace nearly the size of Gramercy Park at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge, where the former Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal sits abandoned.