NY: street art at High Line Park

The High Line Park is one of my favorite places to take a break from traveling and just do nothing – just rest, watch New York go by and enjoy the moment.

The park is located where a deactivated railroad was used to transport meat and poultry to the island of Manhattan (Chelsea Market nearby is no coincidence). Since the restoration project for that area was completed in 2009, High Line Park has become one of the biggest hits in the Big Apple.

Its 2.3 km long form an outdoor space for New Yorkers to rest, stroll and admire the city’s landscape. In a short time, the park also became a perfect setting for the expression of contemporary art and graffiti in the city, especially as it is located on the west side of Chelsea, the neighborhood with the highest concentration of art galleries in the world.

Throughout the park there is a huge variety of street art murals that are part of the High Line Art project, a public art program that licenses and produces art projects for the park, with the aim of promoting a productive dialogue with the neighborhood and the urban landscape.

There are several billboards on West 18th Street, films projected on the walls of West 14th Street, statues and artistic interventions everywhere. And the best: all of this is constantly changing!

During my walk I had a pleasant encounter with a street poet who, after chatting with me for 5 minutes, recited beautiful words to me and made my day even happier!

There is also graffiti by famous urban artists around the world, such as the classic photo of the kiss between a sailor and a nurse in Times Square at the end of World War II, colored on the wall by Brazilian Eduardo Kobra, and the friendly kitten by French artist Monsieur Chat .

I packed my tour with a Mexican pineapple and jalapeño palette from La Newyorkina and took the opportunity, as it wasn’t too far away, to head to 320 West 21st Street and check out the incredible mural that Os Gêmeos produced with the street art pioneer, the American Future.