This is an official dirtgod park bench review. Today I am reviewing a bench along High Line Park, at a little spur in the walking path right around where it crosses 25th Street. Above in title are the latitude/longitude coordinates. I choose to use the stars for navigation though.
IMMEDIATE LOUNGE-ABILITY: The High Line park was built from an old elevated rail spur that used to be the West Side Line of the NY Central Railroad. That was built in the mid 1800s, and served the Meatpacking District. Part of the West Side Line was redeveloped into expensive Riverside Park South high rise apartments by Donald Trump at the turn of the century. And most traffic on the actual rail line had died out by the late ‘70s anyways. The High Line viaduct part was kept working tracks, though abandoned and unused, for a good 30 years. CSX had ended up owning it, having taken over Conrail’s properties, so a group of big money New Yorkers decided to try and turn it into an elevated greenway. Now let’s be perfectly clear… one of my favorite things is walking railroad tracks, anywhere in America. And I bet when this was an abandoned rail line, it was glorious to walk through the dilapidated city and feel the vibes floating up to the unused tracks. I imagine there was a long history of graffiti artists making their way more quickly through the city on this high line back in the day, and hitting spots that boggled the ground level human pigeons looking up. I also love parks, including city parks. But this is liminal space is neither old railroad tracks nor a proper urban park. This is a redevelopment scam, and it was obvious as soon as we made the mistake of going up to it. This was an artery for commercial redevelopment, and in fact, you barely could see the actual city beyond the masturbatory buildings that have gone up like deranged visions of cleverness along both sides of the High Line. In fact, once we were trapped on the fuckin’ thing, I told Dolly, “The next bench in sunshine we see, let’s sit down.” It took us a while to even find one, because these stupid fucking “more money than sense” buildings had been erected all over. And there was one art installation, I guess to justify it as an art park (which is what the lying ass internet wanted to pretend it was), but that one installation was fucking stupid looking. And, there was no vandalism anywhere, not even stickers, which you see everywhere in NYC. That means somebody has paid for staff to just keep this fuckin’ thing as sterile as possible. On top of this, the benches are those sad ass slots of wood that look like gentrification benches, but aren’t comfortable at all. The whole thing is a goddamn atrocity, and I look forward to an economic collapse that causes it all – the fancy buildings and walkway – to become abandoned, drug-addled, and a testament to human avarice, hopefully in my lifetime. Immediate Lounge-ability was a
1 (out of 23 possible).
RIPPLES OF AMBIANCE: One of the great beauties of New York City is that as you walk around, you are surrounded by flows of people, often speaking languages you don’t understand. But there is a cadence of lounge to those accents in many places, even if linguistically fast, there are the drawls and dashes of working people. That’s not the case on the High Line. It is all business, and the foreign languages that pass you by have long been scrubbed of the spices of hard labor, for generations likely, and it’s the smooth rapid overly confident speak of powerpointed people, who always have a purpose, and often have enough money to pretend they’ve never failed that purpose. Good lord this place was torturous for me. The only saving redemption at all was that where we sat upon a bench, at least in this spot, you could see the old rail tracks underneath the walkway, and a couple pigeons were grabbing twigs to build a nest. Without that, this would’ve been a 1 as well. Ripples of Ambiance was a
5 (out of 23 possible).
CULTURE OF BENCH: As mentioned before, there was no signs of vandalism. Thus, there were no signs of vagrancy either, which is just outlawed lounging. (When lounging is outlawed, then only outlaws will lounge.) What this means is that, as this part was built since 2009, there is no high quality lounging that has happened here. The benches are still as sterile as stainless steel in a Yakubian laboratory, which of course, with some bullshit ass architectural monstrosities from Mike Bloomberg’s brain at the northern end of this thing, it ultimately is. These benches are not for The People, and really, they’re only there to create the illusion of friendliness. Nobody is actually supposed to be sitting on these benches for any longer than it takes to move funds between their savings and checking accounts to go make some more purchases of things unattainable by most. And fittingly for a consumer-based existence, as is my problem with most of America’s most consumer-oriented notions of Americana, the “culture” is more a lack of culture than any actual culture. In retrospect, I wish I had attempted to set fire to the bench we sat on, so that no future loungers ever had their ass tarnished by its existence. Culture of Bench was a
1 (out of 23 possible).
IMMEDIATE LOUNGE-ABILITY: 1
RIPPLES OF AMBIANCE: 5
CULTURE OF BENCH: 1
TOTAL SCORE: 7 (out of possible 69). If I ever find a worse bench to review, I hope I pass it by without stopping. Too many more experiences like this and I’ll be forced to form some sort of terrorist organization dedicated to enforcing The Power of Lounge through homemade IEDs.
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