Sure, the High Line is great and all — abandoned rail line turned into a beautiful outdoor leisure area, what's not to love? (Plus, reportedly you can see people getting undressed in the windows of one of the hotels that straddles the park.) But what it's really missing is an element of Neil Gaimany beautiful creepiness. I know! Let's put it UNDERGROUND.
That's the thinking behind the Low Line, a proposed park that would turn two acres of abandoned Lower East Side trolley terminal into an underground Eden. This pastoral underworld would have plants, water features, and even natural sunlight brought in by fiber-optic cables. (Ultraviolet-free natural sunlight, no less, so artsy East Villagers can sunbathe while maintaining their poetic pallor. And also incidentally not getting skin cancer). The plan's not reality yet, but the entrepreneurs who are proposing it will be making their pitch to community groups this week, and later to the city's transit authority.
Best part: When the surface becomes uninhabitable, the Low Line would still be a sunny, pleasant green space! Dangle your feet in the koi pond, hide from the zombies, munch on the ornamental plants. Maybe we should tell them to pick non-toxic ones, to be on the safe side.
