‘Lowline’ promises to create world’s first underground park in New York
'Lowline' would transform a former transport terminal into subterranean version of High Line
Visitors from around the world are drawn to New York City's High Line, an elevated park built on defunct railway tracks transformed into an urban sanctuary of flowers, grasses and trees.
Private planners inspired by the High Line's success are now looking deep under Manhattan at a proposal to create the Lowline, billed as the world's first underground park.
The project would occupy a 116-year-old abandoned trolley terminal below the Lower East Side that's been used for storage since 1948.
Street-level solar collectors would be used to filter the sun about six metres down to bedrock, turning the dank, subterranean space into a luminous, plant-filled oasis. The park would offer city residents a place of refuge and host art exhibits, music performances, readings and children's activities.
The Lowline is only one part of a Lower East Side revitalisation project.
The neighbourhood has an important place in the history of immigration. At the turn of the last century, newly arriving Italian, Irish, and German families made their first homes in America in its tenements. So many Jewish families settled in the neighbourhood that it has been called "the American-Jewish Plymouth Rock".