The Lowdown on the Lowline

A playful take on New York's wildly successful transformation of abandoned rail infrastructure into one of the city's most celebrated parks, the Lowline is an ambitious vision to do the same - yet underground. Renderings depicting the transformation of an abandoned trolley terminal from the early 1900s into a green oasis sparked the imaginations of New Yorkers upon their release last year, and inspired a successful Kickstarter campaign to test the radical technology that would allow subterranean sunlight to shine "through the sidewalk in beams powerful enough to grow greenery." 

New Yorkers can see the results of that campaign when the "Imagining the Lowline" installation showcasing the project's proposed "solar harvesting" technology opens this Saturday. While the Lowline vision is still far from becoming a reality, according to Perrin Drumm, writing in the Architect's Newspaper, "State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez are all already singing the Lowline's praises, and even Turkey has expressed interest in a Lowline of their own."