We were driving through a landscape reminiscent of ones you see in images beamed back to Earth from the Mars Rover (above) — severe, rocky, dry, empty, with no visible signs of life.  It was a part of the Mojave Desert near Spring Mountain, just past the outskirts of Las Vegas, in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

We were myself, my sister and her two kids Harry and Nora, just arrived for their annual Dream Vacation in Las Vegas.  Harry and Nora's dad, a film editor, sometimes known as the hardest working man in show business, is almost always on a job during their summer vacation, so my sister brings them here for an escape.

Rounding a bend on the twisting desert road we saw what we were looking for — a kind of mirage in the midst of the desert, Lake Las Vegas, an artificial lake at the edge of Henderson, Nevada, a Las Vegas suburb.  It is surrounded by green swards, most of which are golf courses, and by what look like cookie-cutter versions of Italian villas, most of which are condos.

We parked near a little “village” at the edge of the lake, near the MonteLago Resort.  This has shops and restaurants in a facsimile Italian lakeside town, next to a marina.  It was violently hot and we headed more or less directly to a restaurant by the water called Bernard's Bistro.  It was a genuinely charming place, somewhat upscale, and we had an exceptionally good lunch there.

This was the start of Harry and Nora's fifth summer visit to Las Vegas, and we'd wanted to see something we'd never seen before, something très Vegas, which means très weird but also weirdly amusing.

We saw it and were content.

Folks who don't live in the New York City area might not know about the High Line — a stretch of elevated railroad tracks in lower Manhattan.  It used to carry freight trains into Manhattan terminals but stood abandoned for years and attained a kind of mythical status, because it became overgrown with vegetation and constituted a bit of wilderness in the middle of the city.  It was officially inaccessible but became familiar through photographs taken of it and the stories of people who sneaked up to have a look at it themselves.

There are benches that rise up from the ground in sleek fashion.  There are big lounge chairs made of dark wood.  There's a space with auditorium seating that looks out over 10th Avenue.

The palette is modern grey and dark brown
. . . with weeds carefully placed growing in patches here and there.


Everything is very well thought out and all . . . perfect.


I walked all the way to the far end and then went back to the middle and took a seat on one of the lounge chairs.


And as I sat there . . . I became incredibly sad.

The High Line is like one of those beautiful old historic factories that is converted into a clean modern luxury loft.


The modern sleekness has cleaned all emotion from the place.  No mystery — no possibilities.


It's all too perfectly designed, too purposefully placed . . . everything —
every “haphazard” weed, every loose pebble.  Even the concrete slabs on
the ground have perfectly placed irregularities.  All of it makes it
impossible for me to make the space . . . my space.  I can't connect with
it personally.


I can't do anything in the space that the architects and designers haven't already prepared for.

Why can't something just be, age and become whatever it is it is
becoming?  What's with face lifts and boob jobs?  What's with “luxury”
condos?  What's with the High Line!  Another place for people to make
money now I suppose.  (There are bars and restaurants opening up all
over the neighborhoods near the High Line, and up on the High Line, too.)  Personally I like a really nicely aged
steak rather than a fresh cut.


It is so sad to me . . . yet another thing in New York that has come to ruin . . .

Jae has made subsequent visits to the High Line and modified his opinion of it somewhat.  New Yorkers are appropriating it and making it their own.  That's what New Yorkers always do.  When Central Park opened in 1873 one of its designers, Frederick Law Olmstead, wanted visitors to use it exactly as he imagined it being used — strolling its paths in a civilized manner, serenely admiring his vision of nature.  He didn't want bars or bandstands or ball fields — anything that might attract or appeal to the baser natures of the great unwashed.

That didn't last long.

So there's hope for the High Line, too.  Perhaps Jae will write a follow-up report on the progress of its re-incorporation . . . as a people's park.