The Promenade Plantee

The Gotham Gal and I have gotten excited about The Highline that is getting turned into a park in New York City. We’ve given money and are trying to help them raise more. I’ve posted about the Highline on this blog in the past. One of the inspirations for The Highline is an elevated viaduct in Paris that has been turned into a park called The Promenade Plantee. It’s in the 12th arrondissement and I’ve been meaning to go visit it while we are here in Paris.

Yesterday, Josh and I biked (velib baby!) over there and back and walked the Promenade. I’ve walked the HIghline in NYC a number of times and the two parks are not going to be that simlar. The Promenade Plantee is very much a garden and at times you don’t even see the streets around it. The Highline is being designed to take advantage of the cityscape around it and will have much less plantings and more views.

Regardless of similarities and/or differences, I am a huge fan of reusing our urban landscapes and am a big fan of this movement to create parkland out of elevated structures.

Here’s a 30 second Animoto video I created from the photos I took on my blackberry. I think it does a good job of giving you a sense of the place.

#Blogging On The Road#NYC

Comments (Archived):

  1. Nick Molnar

    Now I see why Jeff Bezos keeps talking about the compute power needed to run Animoto: that is one flashy video.

    1. fredwilson

      I think animoto or something like it might be the video equivalent of text ads

  2. Alai

    Is it not more difficult to keep a place clean if there are plants around? I don’t know anything about the rate of littering in NYC, but I imagine it is fairly high considering its status as a large urban center. For that matter, how is Central Park kept clean? Same method as freeways and streets?

  3. Noah David Simon

    Seesmic video reply from Disqus.