The former West Side Elevated Line, built in 1933 to haul meat and dairy above Manhattan, was donated to the city in 2002 and began its conversion to a public park in 2006. The first stretch opened in 2009, and the park now attracts roughly six million visitors annually, making it New York’s most‑visited urban greenway.
The new 34th Street garden sits at the northern terminus, covering 2,561 square feet of planting beds that will hold about 2,000 perennials, including sedges, grasses and Heuchera villosa “Autumn Bride.” Richard Hayden, the park’s senior director of horticulture, said the beds will allow plants to root deeply in the earth, a first for the High Line’s elevated gardens.
Piet Oudolf, who set the park’s signature naturalistic style in earlier phases, returned to design the entrance. He said the new layout should “invite people in” and provide a “proper, greener welcome” that reflects the park’s fame.
The garden’s opening will remove the last construction shed that has blocked the northern edge, making the entire line fully accessible for the first time. City officials say the move completes a two‑decade plan to turn obsolete infrastructure into a continuous public greenway.
Meanwhile, the Prairie Terrace at 17th Street has been replanted after nine years of scaffolding, and its walkway reopened last fall, adding new vine screens and trees.