the LOWLINE

The Lowline began with the discovery of one of New York’s best-kept secrets: an abandoned trolley terminal in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. RAAD Studio founder James Ramsey recognized this urban ruin as the perfect site to deploy technology he had invented to transmit sunlight to unexpected spaces. In uniting urban archeology with futuristic solar technology, the Lowline was created, introducing the world to a new paradigm for public spaces, while also presenting a novel solution to urbanization in the face of the climate crisis. 

The Lowline swiftly became a grassroots movement, empowering New Yorkers to imagine and build a new future for our city, while presenting exciting possibilities for green spaces all over the world.

The New York Times called the Lowline the world’s first underground park, and “the latest frontier in the quest to carve out more parkland” in urban environments.

The New Yorker likened a visit to the Lowline test facility to feeling like “Alice in Wonderland looking around after her long fall into the depths of the earth.”

New York Magazine called the Lowline “the city’s most generous new green space.”

More, on Wikipedia.