Architects Agree: The Buildings Around the High Line Are Terrible
“It’s like when you go to someone’s wedding and they’re trying to prove how fancy it is,” an architect is saying to me. “Like they have both sushi and caviar, but the sushi has just been sitting out.” He’s talking about the apartment towers surrounding the High Line, which arguably constitute the densest conglomeration of buildings designed by celebrated architects anywhere in the world. All these new buildings were constructed after the High Line opened in 2009, and they’ve turned the trestle park that was once elevated above its surroundings into a canyon. And when architects gather, they talk about the district with irrepressible scorn. “It’s like everyone was trying to outdo the next person,” another architect told me. “Starchitects and architects all trying to make an identity for themselves. It perpetuated this series of trinkets.” A third called it, succinctly, “Dancing-clown architecture.”