I Went on a Field Trip. . .

. . . and it wasn't even mine :)
You'd think that as and education major, I'd get to go on lots of field trips. The truth is in my three years of college, I've been on three (well four now) field trips. Two of the ones I went on that I was actually belonged on were for history classes: one to art museum and one to Wall Street. The third was a museum for my science class. None of them were particularly thrilling.
On the other hand, my boyfriend has easily gone on four this semester alone. I wish I had that many field trips. Anyway, his most recent was to New York. Super excellent as that is where I am. So I got to tag along and put faces to all the names I'm always hearing. His studio class only has 12 students in it so they all get to know each other pretty well.
The trip started at The High Line. Eric and I actually tried to go here back in August, but we got rained on. For those of you who don't know what this is, The High Line is an old elevated rail line that was used to run freight down the west side of Manhattan. However, as less freight was transported by train, the line stopped being used and basically became an elevated wasteland full of grasses and other plants, used primarily as a place for homeless people to sleep.When (in the 1990's) they started to talk about tearing it down, two men joined together to fight to keep it open. After several years, it was decided that it should be turned into an elevated park. The goal was to keep it sort of wild, natural, and slow-paced. I think they accomplished it. It's a really cool space.

Above: Part of the attempt to keep it wild can be seen in all tall grasses that are like the ones that were there before they began to turn it into a park.

 I don't know what all these plants are, but Eric does. And he took the pictures.

 Above: You can see how they tried to make the walkway transition easily and gently into the plant life, more attempts to keep it wild and natural.

 Above: At many points you can still see the remaining train tracks. In one section of the park, they actually used them in the design with some wooden lounge chairs. We didn't get a picture of that.

 Above: Again, the attempts to keep it wild and natural can be seen in the benches that rise out of the walkways. I thought this was super cool.

Above: I only posted this picture because of the totally epic creeper in the background. It made us laugh.

In the midst of our walk of The High Line, we excited to walk over to Chelsea Cove. I never get tired of looking at the water. So beautiful.

Then we took a break for lunch. We (at least most of the class) ate at the New York Burger Company. It was very yummy and pretty decent prices for Manhattan. After lunch, we headed back to the High Line to finish walking it and meet up with some staff members who gave us a little tour for the rest of the way.

From there, we head to the 9/11 Memorial. This was probably my least favorite part of the day. I've never exactly pegged myself as super emotional regarding 9/11. I mean, I was nine when it happened, and while I remember it clearly, I don't have the emotional tie-ins that so many New Yorkers have. But this memorial just left me depressed. The actually waterfall/pool things were very cool. But the overall design just left me feeling cold and alone even though I was surrounded by people. Everything was grey and the trees were so dull in color even in the midst of fall. I kept thinking that if I had died that day, I would want people to remember me in a place that was full of life and color. This is not that place. I found it depressing.

 If I remember correctly, the only plants in the entire memorial are these trees and the ivy stuff at the base of some of the trees. (Eric better not read this or he'd be ashamed of my lack of specificity :P) Oh, and the survivor tree (below) which, while ugly, has cool symbolism.

 Above you can see the waterfall effect. Apparently, the individual streams are symbolic of individual loss and they flow together (below) to symbolize collective loss. You can't tell the depth of the square in the middle (the void within the void). Supposedly this is symbolic of how immeasurable our loss is. Or something like that.

All in all it was a fun day! And I saved the class from accidentally going downtown on the subway instead of uptown at the very end of the day. I served a purpose :)


Sincerely,