This summer, thousands of visitors are walking in through a garden in the sky. It is right in the middle of New York City. They are enjoying a beautiful, new park called the High Line, which was built on old railway tracks.
After the railway was no longer used in 1980, wild plants, grass and trees began to grow between the tracks. A few people looked at this natural garden and saw something amazing. They worked to protect the area when others wanted to pull it down. Today, the High Line attracts up to 2 million visitors every year. This summer, the new part of the High Line started, almost doubling the park's size to one mile.
The design of the park is special. The new part includes many activities for children. Young people can use building toys, including wood, wheels, ropes, gears and tools, to create one-of-a kind structures(构造). The toys don't come with instructions. Instead, children use their imaginations to fashion houses, animals and machines.
"Everyone supporting the High Line project wanted the park to go around the city," says Danya Sherman, director of public programs for the Friends of the High Line. The Friends of the High Line is the group that saved the railway from pulling down. Sherman believes that public spaces such as the High Line have the power to bring communities closer.
The park also gives visitors a chance to experience nature in the city. The designers have allowed the park to keep the overgrown feeling that it had when it was an unused track. If you visit, you can see birds, butterflies and many plants that grow in the northeastern United States.
The Friends of the High Line hope to make the park even larger, over an area that is still used as a rail yard. The High Line has also inspired projects in other cities, including Philadelphia, Chicago, and Amsterdam, where people hope to build new parks on old railway tracks.
