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Time: 3:00pm - 10:00pm
Depart from and Return to the Clarence Dillon Library, Laminton Road, Bedminster
The cost is $100 per person for members of URWA and $120 for non-members (this fee includes transportation and tour). Registration including payment is required by the close of business on Thursday, September 16th. Checks should be made payable to URWA and mailed to P. O. Box 273, Gladstone, NJ 07934 or you may drop off a check at URWA’s office at Fairview Farm, 2121 Larger Cross Road, Bedminster. For more information, please contact Susan Brookman at 908-234-1852 ext. 20 or sbrookman@urwa.org.
URWA hosts lots of fabulous programs for our youngest watershed stewards, and this year we’ve added something for our grown up members and friends. We have organized a series of day trips with gardening enthusiasts, budding organic farmers, nature photographers, native plant advocates, eco-citizens and environmental commission members in mind. Come alone and make new friends or gather up some pals and explore some really special, yet not-too-far-away places.
The High Line was built in the 1930s as part of New York City’s massive West Side Improvement infrastructure project. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan’s largest industrial district until 1980, when trains stopped using the track. Under threat of demolition in 1999, a community-based non-profit group called the Friends of the High Line formed to work with the City to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park.
The High Line is a place to experience great public art and learn about horticulture, urban design and the City’s history. Its landscape functions essentially like a green roof; porous pathways contain open joints, so water can drain between planks, hydrating adjacent planting beds, and cutting down on the amount of stormwater that runs off the site into the sewer system.
On Thursday, September 23rd we’ll travel by bus into New York City to take a one-hour guided tour of the High Line that will focus on the inherently green nature of the structure to see how it repurposes a piece of industrial infrastructure as public green space. After our tour, we’ll head down to the street to have an early dinner at one of the nearby restaurants (dinner is not included in our tour package, thus it will be Dutch Treat). Before we return to Bedminster, we’ll have one more chance to visit the High Line to see how enchanting it looks at dusk.
