Friday, October 12, 2012

A High Point for Urban Decay


Is part of the appeal of the High Line project on Manhattan's West Side something Flint has in abundance — decay, abandonment and hazy nostalgia?

Sarah Goodyear of The Atlantic Cities writes:
But everyone knows that the ghost of urban decay is as crucial to the High Line’s appeal as fancy design, if not more so. And so, when the final section opens, there will be “an interim walkway wending through the existing landscape of self-seeded wildflowers, native grasses, and shrubs,” according to the press release. People will be able to gaze out on a vestige of what inspired the whole High Line project to begin with. This patch of entropy will be a ragtag object of curiosity in an otherwise well-groomed setting, the last buffalo on the urban prairie, to be regarded with fond nostalgia.





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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.