Ambitious plans for construction of the Underline, a 10-mile-long “linear park” for people on foot and on bikes that would run beneath the elevated Metrorail tracks, got a significant lift with the announcement Wednesday of a $22.3 million federal grant for the project.
From October 16 – 18, the High Line Network convened the largest gathering of North American infrastructure reuse project leaders in our first ever symposium Beyond Economic Impact: Charting the Field of Infrastructure Reuse.
An installation on the High Line shares writing by prisoners in a space that emulates cells. The Writing on the Wall is the second project of the High Line Network Joint Art Initiative and will travel to other sites across the United States.
Earlier this month, Friends of the High Line, the nonprofit that operates and manages the High Line in collaboration with New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, brought together leaders of 60 infrastructure reuse projects from the U.S. and Canada for a symposium titled “Economic Impact and Beyond.” Its goal was to examine if new public spaces, being created out of underutilized infrastructure, were incorporating equity considerations into their plans and explore strategies to ensure that benefits from such projects reach all communities.
During the past 15 years, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership has invested or leveraged more than $144 million to compile a 70-acre patchwork of public spaces along the eastern waterfront.
Chicago architects used a grant in 2012 to interview teens and adults about how they experience public spaces. Listening to the teens’ perspective inspired them to create a path for young people to get involved in urban planning.
Great public spaces are made and remade again and again through management decisions around maintenance, public safety, social services, programming, furnishing etc. Public space management has a profound effect on the success of placemaking efforts.
The “Site/Sound” festival, created by Friends of the Rail Park and Mural Arts Philadelphia, begins Saturday and runs until Oct. 19. It spotlights parts of the old trackbed that are not yet developed into the public park.
The Atlanta BeltLine is looking for construction firms for the first phase of the Southside Trail. The first section of the Southside Trail plans to extend off the Westside Trail terminus with plans to link the Westside and Eastside sections of the park.
The 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, D.C.—a planned repurposing of the retired 11th Street Bridge across the Anacostia River between the East of the River neighborhoods and Capitol Hill into a vibrant city park—will connect communities and create new shared experiences across and along the Anacostia River. This innovative public-private partnership in the nation’s capital is re-connecting neighborhoods to the river’s banks and to each other.
