The Lowline...

After the AMAZING success of the Highline Park, the next railway themed park to be heading to New York is the Lowline!

The plan is to convert an abandoned trolley station below Delancy Street into the worlds first underground park. It's all still in the process of being approved and the planners are still looking for funding, and for permission from the MTA to use the old station.

So to get people excited and to try and spur things on a bit, the Lowline people organised a little showcase exhibition in an old warehouse on Essex Street (right across the road from the proposed site), with a full-scale fully function section of the park to give everyone a sneak peek at what the real thing could be like...

The park will be naturally lit using clever little windows in the roof, the sunlight will shine down and be reflected around using mirrored panels...

They'll apparently be enough sunlight to allow plants to photosynthesize underground!

I'm sure the park will look incredible with loads of these light pods dotted around all over the place, but I think an underground park might be a wee bit claustrophobic... it's hard to imagine really, perhaps it'll be absolutely flooded with sunlight and it won't feel like you're underground at all... I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

Either way, I think it'll be hard to beat the success of the Highline - that's such an ingenious idea and a really beautiful space, and part of the uniqueness is that you can see New York from a completely different view point. I suppose the Lowline might be a nice place to go to escape the busyness of the city instead?

We'll just have to wait and see...