High Hopes for High Line New York—A new, nonprofit group called Friends of the High Line wants to save from demolition an abandoned elevated ral platform that runs through Chelsea and turn it into a 1.3-mile landscaped promenade. ‘Starting at Gansevoort Street in the West Village and ending. ‘Community and celebrity activists want to turn an elevated rail platform over Tenth Avenue into a pedestrian promenade. ‘at West Sth Street, the High Line isthe last remaining segment of the steel-girded platform that was erected in the 1930s to re- duce traffic along Tenth Avenue. For almost a decade, some owners of easements along the High Line have been lobbying for the demolition of the plat form, currently the property of CSX Corporation, so that the area could be developed. In 1992 a federal order mandated that the owners would have to share the estimated $7 million to $9 million cost to tear down the platform, To date, they have not reached an agreement on how to divide the cost, and the High Line stil stands, Modeled alter Paris's Promenade Plantée, which converted an elevated rail line for public use, the Friends” proposal calls for an adaptive reuse of the platform—not a historic restoration incorporating both public space and commercial enterprise, “We're not against new development,” says Robert Hammond, a cofounder of the Friends group. “We're for reasonable ‘community-supported development.” A number of prominent arts-and-entertainment personali- ties have lent their names to the new proposal, among them Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Tom Sachs, Cindy Sherman, Paula Cooper, Matthew Marks, Todd Oldham, and Richard Meier. “It would be a spectacular thing from an urbanistic point of view, because Tenth Avenue is a very boring strip,” says Lucas Schoormans, who opened his West 26th Street gallery for a December fund-raiser, where the Friends’ plan ‘was unveiled, A week later, Federal Express announced its decision to relo- ‘cate a new 550,000-square-foot distribution center that would have required the destruction of the High Line. The city does not advocate saving the rail platform, but the Friends have Sought support elsewhere. The independent nonprofit Design ‘Trust for Public Space, which pairs New York projects with ar- chitects and urban designers, recently selected the group as « project partner and will help fund research into ways of imple- ‘menting the promenade proposal Jessica Dheere