In the nineteenth century, New York City's growing population and manufacturing economy led to freight rail lines along Manhattan's streets and waterfronts, but dangerous street-level traffic on the West Side became known as Death Avenue and prompted major change. Beginning in 1929, the City and State of New York and the New York Central Railroad undertook the West Side Improvement Project, which eliminated 105 street-level crossings and created the elevated High Line. Opened in 1934 from West 34th Street to St. John's Park Terminal, the line rose 30 feet above the street and connected directly to factory and warehouse loading docks, carrying meat, produce, dairy products, and other goods as an essential part of Manhattan's industrial landscape. As manufacturing declined and highways and trucking reduced rail use in the 1950s and 1960s, traffic on the High Line fell, parts of it were demolished, and after the last train ran in 1980 carrying frozen turkeys, the structure sat unused while a self-seeded landscape emerged along the tracks. In 1999, after a planning study on reuse was presented in West Chelsea, Joshua David and Robert Hammond founded Friends of the High Line to advocate preservation and public reuse, and with support from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the City Council, CSX Transportation, and the City of New York, the railway was gradually donated and converted into public open space. Between 2009 and 2019, sections of the High Line opened to the public, and the former freight line came to link the Meatpacking District, Chelsea, and Hudson Yards while remaining a physical reminder of the railroad's role in New York City's industrial past.
