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Building Community

By High Line | June 29, 2020

This year has been tough. It’s been tiring, frustrating, and emotional. It’s forced us all to confront some pretty hard issues both personally and as part of a larger community. This can feel overwhelming, and impossible to maneuver alone. We need others, to not just learn and share as we evolve, but to hold ourselves accountable.

The High Line Network is one of those critical communities—a strategic hub formed in 2017 for nonprofit leaders reimagining infrastructure as open space to share and learn. After the Network’s first open call for new members this spring, we’re thrilled to announce 15 new members to the group today, growing the Network to 39 ambitious projects across North America and increasing the diversity of voices in conversation.

Our new members include our first project based in Mexico and second Canadian member. With the growing importance of the public realm in our post-pandemic recovery, we’re learning how to recapture streets for active use. One member is preserving arches over an old railroad trench, while another celebrates a former World’s Fair site. Many recapture waterfronts for public use, while others weave public art and culture through a city. Serving hybrid purposes, one will be an outdoor museum to Black culture and activism and another supports a growing regional economy. From Lexington and St. Paul to Buffalo and San Francisco, members represent the diversity of reimagined infrastructure across North America. They all work to build connections between people and communities. The new members are:

Bergen Arches | Jersey City, NJ
Brickline Greenway | St. Louis, MO
CicLAvia | Los Angeles, CA

Destination Crenshaw | Los Angeles, CA
Grand River Corridor | Grand Rapids, MI
Great River Passage | St. Paul, MN
Harbor District Riverwalk | Milwaukee, WI
Hemisfair | San Antonio, TX
India Basin Park | San Francisco, CA
Indianapolis Cultural Trail | Indianapolis, IN
The Meadoway | Toronto, ON, Canada
Memphis Riverfront | Memphis, TN
La Mexicana Park | Mexico City, Mexico
The Riverline | Buffalo, NY
Town Branch Park | Lexington, KY

This new group also brings an exceptional amount of expertise in ways to engage and collaborate with their neighbors, and will build the capacity of the Network overall to hold ourselves accountable to the question of “who benefits?” when creating new public spaces. Breaking down centuries-old systems of inequities requires ingenuity, risk, and innovation, and many of our new members inspire us in the ways they are advancing their own work.

Through open and honest conversation, members collaborate on the on-the-ground challenges of operating public spaces during a health crisis, and larger policy and organizational issues of what it means to equitably serve Black and Brown communities. These conversations offer practical support, but also inspiration on how to do more, better, and with accountability. The Network’s expansion ensures even more projects are supported in their individual commitments to addressing inequities through their public spaces.

For the High Line, all Network members have and will continue to inspire our own work. They each challenge and remind us that we are not alone in a constant evolution to serve cities and communities. It can be hard and overwhelming, but through community, we’ll learn together.

See a full list of all High Line Network members


Photo credits: Bergen Arches, Credit: Eka Pramuditha | Brickline Greenway, Credit: Great Rivers Greenway | CicLAvia, Credit: Givanni Solis | Destination Crenshaw, Credit: Perkins + Will | Grand River Corridor, Credit: Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. | Great River Passage, Credit: VJAA Architects and Great River Passage Conservancy | Harbor District, Credit: Jiajing Chen | Hemisfair, Credit: GGN | India Basin Park, Credit: GGN | Indianapolis Cultural Trail, Credit: ICT | Memphis River Park, Credit: Selavie Photography | The Meadoway, Credit: TRCA | The Riverline, Credit: Calvin Nemec | Town Branch Park, Credit: SCAPE


Support

The High Line Network is made possible by the founding support of The JPB Foundation.