At The Park (in NYC)!

The High Line is one of my favorite places to hang out here in New York City--it's a super cool, beautifully designed park that spans more than twenty blocks up the west side of the city. Part of what makes the park so interesting is that the city built it directly on top of old elevated train track lines--freight trains used to ship supplies into the city using those tracks, but they haven't been in use since, oh, 1980. And a few years ago, the city turned them into this beautiful park.

I really don't go all the way over to the west side all that often--I live in the East Village, and it's surprisingly easy to get lazy about going so far across town (I know, I know, it's pathetic!). But for some reason I keep finding myself at the High Line this year--I've been more than three times now just over the past two months!

Anyway, I love this place and I always leave feeling really inspired. I think it's the combination of nature and all the cool artistic elements, both in the park, and on neighboring rooftops.... All the photos here are from my last trip a few weeks ago, with my boyfriend and his brother. It's such a fun place to take visitors--it's scenic, it's free, and it means I have a good excuse to go! You can see in the first picture how the architecture of the city really becomes part of the park experience.

In the second picture, you can see something I found last time called "The High Line Zoo"--an artistically created zoo of styrofoam animals on a nearby rooftop. It's not even an actual part of the park--somebody just made it for fun, for park visitors to enjoy. I love it.

It's fun to look at all the things around that aren't actually part of the park--all the nearby rooftop gardens with their sculptures and flowers, graffiti sprayed onto the sides buildings, and so on. The park is right by the water too, so around sunset it is just beautiful... If you are in New York City and you haven't been to the High Line, you should definitely go. It's a pretty awesome way to spend an afternoon!