Innovation Is Shaking into the LowLine ~ Dan Barasch & James Ramsey
Make Way, High Line: Former NASA Engineer Kickstarts “LowLine” Underground Park
The success of New York’s High Line park has inspired urban planners around the globe to refashion unused infrastructure into soaring parks. And now, it has inspired something close to its opposite: The LowLine, an underground park whose fundraising drive is kicking off today on Kickstarter. If successful, it might eventually become the most massive project ever begun by the crowd-funding website. For now, the visionaries behind the LowLine are hoping to raise $100,000 to create mock-ups of their technology that will bring natural light into the space.
That technology was conceived by the LowLine’s founders, Dan Barasch and James Ramsey, and would use fiber optic cables to fill the subterranean space with natural light and living plants. The proposed site is an unused and long neglected 13-acre former subway stop on Delancey Street, built in 1903 in New York’s Lower East Side. While they imagine the park serving the local community it is found in, they also imagine this park becoming a model for the reappropriation of other, long-forgotten gems found in cities all over the world. It’s the kind of space that childhood daydreams are made of.
“I was talking to my mom the other day,” said Barasch, “and she asked me how long we’d actually been working on this project. … It’s only been really two to three months of taking this more seriously and having it not just live in our heads. We’re really just three months into this. But the speed with which this project has gained momentum is astonishing.” Ramsey agrees and chimes in, “There’s a collective cultural longing that is making this project strike a chord. We are all feeling weary of cheap, new, modern. There is a throwback to previous eras of slow, local, community. ”
But the project isn’t simply an attempt to recapture the past. It is a conflation of a few really big trends, and some almost sci-fi, futuristic technology.
Finding Appropriate Uses For Green Tech
Ramsey, a former NASA satellite engineer and current principal at RAAD studios, has developed a series of fiber-optic tubes specifically for this project. The use of this kind of green tech is usually confined to massive projects in far away places, experiments on the edge of actually being built. Ramsey is adamant that it’ll work, and will make accessible what has previously been hidden in the depths. “That process of discovery, of finding something like this that was lurking beneath the surface, was something that I found so compelling, that I felt like, this experience, this space, was something that needed to be shared with more people. One of the easiest ways to get people to consider a space like this would be to introduce natural sunlight,” says Ramsey.
Preserving What’s Already There
Today’s Kickstarter campaign is meant to be a start. Eventually, they hope to fund an event drawing on the legendary artists and musicians who have made the Lower East Side the mecca of the creative community that it is. To that end, the keyword for the design process is conservation--the original architecture of vaulted ceilings and railroad tiles, and the surrounding fabric of the neighborhood.
Dan Barasch lives on the LES, and he’s got a stake in it. “We want to preserve all we can of this shared legacy. The LES has always been rock and roll, and that’s not something we want to tone down so much that we lose it," he says. "Right now it’s dirty and wild and vast. It’s the magic of what’s to come”
Backstory: About this project
What is the LowLine?
We want to transform an abandoned trolley terminal on the Lower East Side of Manhattan into the world’s first underground park. It will be a new kind of public space, using solar technology for natural illumination, and cutting edge design to capture and highlight a very special industrial space.
A park… underground?!?
Ever wonder why there's so little green space in New York? There aren’t a lot of empty plots of land just waiting to be turned into new parks. New Yorkers have had to be a little more creative, and must look in unusual places – the High Line, a park built on an old elevated rail trestle, is a great example. A few years ago, we learned about a massive unused former trolley terminal in our neighborhood, the Lower East Side. We got to thinking: what if we could build a park-- underground-- even if the space lacked natural sunlight? So we explored using fiber optic cables to transfer sunlight below ground-- to support the growth of plants and trees. As we shared this idea with others, people got excited. "An underground High Line for the Lower East Side," they'd say. "Kind of like... a LowLine." The nickname stuck.
What is the space like?
This "Delancey Underground" space is quite large, by New York standards: 60,000 square feet, or 1.5 acres -- nearly the size of Gramercy Park. It was built in 1903 as a trolley terminal, for streetcars traveling over the Williamsburg Bridge, and has been out of operation since 1948. We fell in love with the site because of its architectural details: old cobblestones, crisscrossing rail tracks, vaulted 20-foot ceilings, and strong steel columns.
Here's what's even more exciting: it's in the heart of the Lower East Side. Our neighborhood is one of the oldest in the U.S., and has been home to generations of immigrants for centuries. It is a center of diversity, culture, creativity, and innovation.
Let the Sun Shine... Underground
To build this park, we're planning to use a cutting-edge version of existing technology-- which we've already built in prototype. The system uses a system of optics to gather sunlight, concentrate it, and reflect it below ground, where it is dispersed by a solar distributor dish embedded in the ceiling. The light irrigated underground will carry the necessary wavelengths to support photosynthesis-- meaning we can grow plants, trees, and grasses underground. The cables block harmful UV rays that cause sunburn, so you can leave the SPF-45 at home. Sunglasses optional (for cool kids).
What kind of a park is underground?
An awesome one. We think a year-round public space will be valuable for everyone. Farmers markets and vendor stands can feature fresh produce and locally made goods, supporting local and sustainable businesses. Art installations, concerts, and performances can help showcase the incredible creative spirit of the Lower East Side. Youth programming and educational opportunities can offer rich experiences for kids and parents. And a safe haven from the hectic feel of Delancey Street will serve as relief in a very car-centric corner of Manhattan. When it's really cold, or pouring rain, how much fun is it to hang out in Central Park? The High Line? Not so much. The LowLine can be the 21st century answer to traditional parks: instead of building up, let's build down!
What we've done so far
We first presented this idea to our local community board in September, and have been overwhelmed with public interest ever since. We got some great press, from CNN to the New York Times to the Huffington Post. We’ve spoken with the MTA – the State-run Metropolitan Transit Authority, which owns the site – about this idea. The MTA was receptive; they are eager to turn the space into something new. But it’s now our job to prove that the idea could work and would be popular. We’ve met with neighborhood business groups, who are excited about a new magnet for the Lower East Side. We’ve talked with elected officials and community representatives about how we can gain access to the site and start building a park. We’ve spent the last year refining the solar technology, building an initial prototype to demonstrate how it works and planning for a large-scale demo later this year. We've also teamed up with HR&A -- the firm that originally helped demonstrate the potential positive impact of the High Line -- and are working closely with them to refine our analysis and economic model for the park.
What we need to do next
Now we need to build a full-scale installation-- a "mini LowLine"-- so people can see this with their own eyes. And we need $100,000 to build it. This tech demo will be an invaluable tool in helping convince our community, potential funders, the City, and the MTA that this idea can work. It will also help us refine the technology so we get it perfect once it’s time to build the real thing. We’re planning on installing the mockup in the Essex Street Market, an indoor public space in our neighborhood. In addition to raising this money, we’re also beginning the feasibility study that will help build the economic case for the park, and will put us on even better footing with the MTA, the City, and our neighbors. We’re also busy doing outreach to business owners and residents to find out what our neighbors would like to see in this new space.
We hope you’ll support our effort to build a new kind of park. You can visit our web site, delanceyunderground.org (thelowline.org also works-- just don't forget the "the!"), for more information or to see renderings of what the park might look like. And please help us by backing our Kickstarter campaign, at whatever level you can!
Thanks, and we’ll see you underground!
That technology was conceived by the LowLine’s founders, Dan Barasch and James Ramsey, and would use fiber optic cables to fill the subterranean space with natural light and living plants. The proposed site is an unused and long neglected 13-acre former subway stop on Delancey Street, built in 1903 in New York’s Lower East Side. While they imagine the park serving the local community it is found in, they also imagine this park becoming a model for the reappropriation of other, long-forgotten gems found in cities all over the world. It’s the kind of space that childhood daydreams are made of.
“I was talking to my mom the other day,” said Barasch, “and she asked me how long we’d actually been working on this project. … It’s only been really two to three months of taking this more seriously and having it not just live in our heads. We’re really just three months into this. But the speed with which this project has gained momentum is astonishing.” Ramsey agrees and chimes in, “There’s a collective cultural longing that is making this project strike a chord. We are all feeling weary of cheap, new, modern. There is a throwback to previous eras of slow, local, community. ”
But the project isn’t simply an attempt to recapture the past. It is a conflation of a few really big trends, and some almost sci-fi, futuristic technology.
Ramsey, a former NASA satellite engineer and current principal at RAAD studios, has developed a series of fiber-optic tubes specifically for this project. The use of this kind of green tech is usually confined to massive projects in far away places, experiments on the edge of actually being built. Ramsey is adamant that it’ll work, and will make accessible what has previously been hidden in the depths. “That process of discovery, of finding something like this that was lurking beneath the surface, was something that I found so compelling, that I felt like, this experience, this space, was something that needed to be shared with more people. One of the easiest ways to get people to consider a space like this would be to introduce natural sunlight,” says Ramsey.
For The Public, By The Public
“In the early days, urban design was something that happened and was sort of presented. We’ve learned a lot of lessons from the community-centered approach. It’s a sign of our times, that building and design development is something the community thinks about a lot more,” says Barasch. Having learned much from the Highline, the LowLine aims to be a beautiful, public space that is created with the input of the community from the very beginning. Barasch and Ramsey are spending the next 12 months before the MTA’s request for proposals is due, engaging the community in this Lower East Side neighborhood. They will be presenting the park project at high schools and community meetings, making the space a focused studio and working with students at The Columbia University School of Architecture, in a studio led by Jürgen Mayer H and Mark Kushner, as well as working with the consulting firm Purpose to explore new ways of engaging people online--everything they can think of to get a dialog going and incorporate feedback into the process.“It sounds really douchey to say it like this,” says Barasch, “but it’s kind of like crowd sourcing the uses of an amazing space, and then letting people use it in potentially unintended ways.”
Preserving What’s Already ThereToday’s Kickstarter campaign is meant to be a start. Eventually, they hope to fund an event drawing on the legendary artists and musicians who have made the Lower East Side the mecca of the creative community that it is. To that end, the keyword for the design process is conservation--the original architecture of vaulted ceilings and railroad tiles, and the surrounding fabric of the neighborhood.
Dan Barasch lives on the LES, and he’s got a stake in it. “We want to preserve all we can of this shared legacy. The LES has always been rock and roll, and that’s not something we want to tone down so much that we lose it," he says. "Right now it’s dirty and wild and vast. It’s the magic of what’s to come”
Backstory: About this project
What is the LowLine?
We want to transform an abandoned trolley terminal on the Lower East Side of Manhattan into the world’s first underground park. It will be a new kind of public space, using solar technology for natural illumination, and cutting edge design to capture and highlight a very special industrial space.
A park… underground?!?
Ever wonder why there's so little green space in New York? There aren’t a lot of empty plots of land just waiting to be turned into new parks. New Yorkers have had to be a little more creative, and must look in unusual places – the High Line, a park built on an old elevated rail trestle, is a great example. A few years ago, we learned about a massive unused former trolley terminal in our neighborhood, the Lower East Side. We got to thinking: what if we could build a park-- underground-- even if the space lacked natural sunlight? So we explored using fiber optic cables to transfer sunlight below ground-- to support the growth of plants and trees. As we shared this idea with others, people got excited. "An underground High Line for the Lower East Side," they'd say. "Kind of like... a LowLine." The nickname stuck.
What is the space like?
This "Delancey Underground" space is quite large, by New York standards: 60,000 square feet, or 1.5 acres -- nearly the size of Gramercy Park. It was built in 1903 as a trolley terminal, for streetcars traveling over the Williamsburg Bridge, and has been out of operation since 1948. We fell in love with the site because of its architectural details: old cobblestones, crisscrossing rail tracks, vaulted 20-foot ceilings, and strong steel columns.
Here's what's even more exciting: it's in the heart of the Lower East Side. Our neighborhood is one of the oldest in the U.S., and has been home to generations of immigrants for centuries. It is a center of diversity, culture, creativity, and innovation.
Let the Sun Shine... Underground
To build this park, we're planning to use a cutting-edge version of existing technology-- which we've already built in prototype. The system uses a system of optics to gather sunlight, concentrate it, and reflect it below ground, where it is dispersed by a solar distributor dish embedded in the ceiling. The light irrigated underground will carry the necessary wavelengths to support photosynthesis-- meaning we can grow plants, trees, and grasses underground. The cables block harmful UV rays that cause sunburn, so you can leave the SPF-45 at home. Sunglasses optional (for cool kids).
An awesome one. We think a year-round public space will be valuable for everyone. Farmers markets and vendor stands can feature fresh produce and locally made goods, supporting local and sustainable businesses. Art installations, concerts, and performances can help showcase the incredible creative spirit of the Lower East Side. Youth programming and educational opportunities can offer rich experiences for kids and parents. And a safe haven from the hectic feel of Delancey Street will serve as relief in a very car-centric corner of Manhattan. When it's really cold, or pouring rain, how much fun is it to hang out in Central Park? The High Line? Not so much. The LowLine can be the 21st century answer to traditional parks: instead of building up, let's build down!
What we've done so far
We first presented this idea to our local community board in September, and have been overwhelmed with public interest ever since. We got some great press, from CNN to the New York Times to the Huffington Post. We’ve spoken with the MTA – the State-run Metropolitan Transit Authority, which owns the site – about this idea. The MTA was receptive; they are eager to turn the space into something new. But it’s now our job to prove that the idea could work and would be popular. We’ve met with neighborhood business groups, who are excited about a new magnet for the Lower East Side. We’ve talked with elected officials and community representatives about how we can gain access to the site and start building a park. We’ve spent the last year refining the solar technology, building an initial prototype to demonstrate how it works and planning for a large-scale demo later this year. We've also teamed up with HR&A -- the firm that originally helped demonstrate the potential positive impact of the High Line -- and are working closely with them to refine our analysis and economic model for the park.
Now we need to build a full-scale installation-- a "mini LowLine"-- so people can see this with their own eyes. And we need $100,000 to build it. This tech demo will be an invaluable tool in helping convince our community, potential funders, the City, and the MTA that this idea can work. It will also help us refine the technology so we get it perfect once it’s time to build the real thing. We’re planning on installing the mockup in the Essex Street Market, an indoor public space in our neighborhood. In addition to raising this money, we’re also beginning the feasibility study that will help build the economic case for the park, and will put us on even better footing with the MTA, the City, and our neighbors. We’re also busy doing outreach to business owners and residents to find out what our neighbors would like to see in this new space.
We hope you’ll support our effort to build a new kind of park. You can visit our web site, delanceyunderground.org (thelowline.org also works-- just don't forget the "the!"), for more information or to see renderings of what the park might look like. And please help us by backing our Kickstarter campaign, at whatever level you can!
Thanks, and we’ll see you underground!
The new project embodies several key trends in urban planning, including the idea of using publicly raised funding to create a park for all.
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