Happy Thanksgiving From Manhattan’s High Line

Posted: 24 Nov 2016 09:32 AM PST

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone living in the U.S. and as usual a very belated Happy Thanksgiving to everyone living in Canada. Happy Thursday to those of you living somewhere else in the world.

The day before Thanksgiving, my family and I usually head into Manhattan and walk uptown from Penn Station on 34th street to the museums up in the lower 80s. We then cut across Central Park to see the floats being blown up before taking the subway back down to Penn and the train that will take us home.

This year we decided to do something a little different. We walked west until we reached the High Line and then walked the High line south into Chelsea where we had lunch. Then we walked back uptown. Before getting back on the train though, we checked out the window displays at Macy's and Lord & Taylor's and as I do every year I take a lot of pictures along the way.

The High Line

In the 1930s the High Line was used by trains to carry goods into and out of Manhattan's largest industrial district. As trucks became the dominate means of transporting these goods, the train fell out of use. Today the High line is a walkway above part of the city and yesterday we walked it's whole length.

Here are some of the pictures I took along the walk. The first is at 34th street over the West Side Rail Yard. The rest are pictures I took along the way. It's a good walk with interesting views of the city and lots of interesting things to see just next to the High Line itself.

Like I said we ended up in Chelsea and had lunch inside the Chelsea Market

My mom tells me the bread from Amy’s Bread (on the right) is delicious. I’ll find out in a few hours when we sit down to eat.

The water here is coming from a pipe above and it’s kind of like a reverse fountain.

Architecture

One of my favorite subjects in Manhattan is the architecture. I don't see quite the same kinds of buildings now that I live in Colorado. These were all taken during our walk along the High Line.

Our walk this year kept the Empire State Building in view more often than our usual walks of year's past. The middle picture below was taken from the High Line. The other two were taken nearer the building itself.

The Empire State Building From The High Line

Window Displays

I made sure we checked out some of the window displays before heading back to the train. There's something about seeing the displays that makes me feel like the holidays are right around the corner.

The theme at Macy's was "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, which comes from an editorial in the September 21, 1897 edition of The Sun, a newspaper which was merged into other papers that no longer exist.

I'm not sure how this last image fit into the theme, but I like how the buildings across the street are captured in the reflection.

The theme at Lord & Taylor's was The Enchanted Forest, which I think you can tell from the images below.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures I thought turned out well that didn't quite fit into the themes above. The first is looking through the staircase at the end of the High Line and the second is 180 degrees from the staircase looking at the front of the New Whitney Museum. The green chairs caught my eye.

Once again, have a Happy Thanksgiving or enjoy Thursday while the U.S. celebrates a much needed day off after a long and contentious election. I'll give Zoe Leonard the last word. Her text below was written in 1992 and was installed along the High Line earlier this year.