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There was a time—roughly from 1900 to 1980—when New York City’s Meatpacking District was a place for actual . . . meatpacking. The neighborhood, which runs from West 14th Street to Gansevoort Street, was home to more than 250 slaughterhouses and packing plants. In the latter part of the 20th century, the area became a seedy center for drug dealing and prostitution. With the new millennium came the Meatpacking District’s most miraculous transformation—into one of New York’s most fashionable neighborhoods, better known for its nightlife and swank restaurants than its sausage production.

Throughout all these versions, the High Line, an elevated train along the far western side of New York City, stood sentinel. As part of the city’s 1929 West Side Improvement Project, the track had replaced the dangerous ground-level line near 10th Avenue, known as Death Avenue because of the number of fatal crashes and accidents. The High Line spanned twenty-two blocks, from 34th St. to Gansevoort St., and several neighborhoods, including Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Hudson Yards and the Meatpacking District. Trains stopped running on the track with the advent of interstate trucking, and sat unused, a relic of the Far West’s grittier past, amid the gentrification.

In 1999, several new business owners lobbied for the rusty track’s demolition. The line, though, found two champions in Robert Hammond and Joshua David. Hammond, a businessman and longtime West Village resident, says, “With all the changes taking place, the High Line is one constant that keeps the area’s history alive. Josh and I sat next to each other at a community board meeting [concerning the High Line], realized no one was doing anything and from there began brainstorming.” The brainstorming led to the nonprofit Friends of the High Line and a plan not just to keep the track alive, but to transform the space into a public park-like walkway. The model was the popular Promenade Plantée in the 12th arrondissement in Paris, the world’s first elevated park, which featured prominently in the 2004 film Before Sunset.

After gaining support from the city of New York, an impressive fundraising effort was launched, attracting celebrity supporters Kevin Bacon, Ethan Hawke and Diane von Furstenberg, and a design team consisting of the landscape architecture firm Field Operations, architects from Diller Scofidio + Renfro and New Wave horticulturist Piet Oudolf was selected. The design, which Ricardo Scofidio, a principal at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, claims “combines organic and building materials into a vegetal/mineral blend” seeks to preserve the High Line’s existing formula of nature and industry. Most parts of the track were overgrown with grasses and flowers when the building began, and the design features planks that allow plants to peek through. Other highlights include a two-level sundeck near 14th Streets and an art-installation space by Chelsea Market.

The park is slated to open in June 2009, around the same time that Andre Balázs’ new Standard hotel will be fully up and running at Little West 12th Street (rooms can be booked now but restaurants are not yet open): in 2012 the Whitney Museum of American Art is scheduled to open a new Gansevoort Street outpost, to be designed by the renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano.

For visitors to the area, Friends of the High Line is currently developing a roster of walking tours that are organized thematically. Most will be open to the public. For Hammond, the civic component is one of the strongest arguments for keeping the High Line alive. “Today, so much of Manhattan’s Far West—shops, restaurants and clubs—is located behind closed doors or red ropes,” he says. “The High Line is free and wide open. It’s one way to make this area accessible to everyone.”

Read the destination report about New York

Read about where to shop in the Meatpacking District

This spring, Indagare will arrange a special walking tour through this revitalized part of the city, which also recently saw the soft opening of André Balazs’ hotly anticipated Standard Hotel, in an innovative high-rise that straddles the High Line. If you are interested in joining Indagare’s spring tour of the High Line, send us an inquiry or call 212-988-2611 to sign up.