Commuters get new tree-lined connector linking High Line with Moynihan Train Hall

A $50 million expansion of the High Line, Manhattan’s elevated park, will open Thursday with two new sections that spill out onto Moynihan Train Hall, a daily destination for thousands of Long Islanders commuting by rail. 

The new High Line sections, built over 18 months, will allow pedestrians to make a 1.5-mile traverse from the West Village to Midtown West without interruption, walking above some of the most congested streets in the world.

“We’re going to continue everywhere we can to create public spaces,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday. She described the park as a way to showcase for visitors “how incredible New York is at a time when people are questioning the liabilities of our urban areas,” according to a transcript of her remarks from the opening. 

Alan van Capelle, executive director of the High Line and a Commack native, said in an interview that the new sections of the park would be particularly valuable for commuters. “As the center of gravity in commercial real estate switches from Midtown to Midtown West, this is going to be how thousands of Long Islanders get to work every day.”

The High Line drew 5.5 million visitors last year and is on track to draw 8 million this year.

The High Line-Moynihan Connector consists of the 340-foot Woodland Bridge, a massive concrete and steel structure running above West 30th Street from the High Line’s 10th Avenue Spur to Dyer Avenue; and the 260-foot, block-long Timber Bridge, running north above Dyer Avenue toward the Magnolia Court pedestrian plaza at the Manhattan West development, near Moynihan’s 9th Avenue entrance. 

Woodland Bridge has the deepest planting beds in the park, allowing for the largest trees, and has a perforated walkway that High Line management said in a release allows “rainwater to drip down to nourish the plantings, and creating a pedestrian-safe, lush corridor to the train hall.”

Workers built Timber Bridge from 163 Alaskan yellow cedar beams shipped by flatbed truck from British Columbia and assembled on Dyer Avenue in April. The finished pieces, weighing a combined 256,704 pounds, were craned into place in May, according to the release. 

The park’s transformation from tourist attraction to connector has been underway for years, said Donovan Finn, a Stony Brook University environmental planning professor. “The more you connect it to other things that people want and need to get to, separated from the street and from traffic, it becomes part of the city’s transportation infrastructure. You’re turning it into something with utility, as opposed to something fun to stroll down with your out-of-town relatives.” 

Funding for the expansion came from New York State, Brookfield Development, Manhattan West’s owner, and from Friends of the High Line, the nonprofit that maintains the park. Previous sections cost $226 million; its $20 million operating budget is funded by donations and other private sources. 

Generally regarded as one of the most successful private-public partnerships for green space in city history, the park was built in sections starting in 2006 on a former CSX freight rail line. It features public art and performances and its gardens are home to more than 500 species of plants and trees.