Sounds like a Win-Win situation.
For $25 Million, let em build that Dreyfuss Hudson.
Run excursions with it up to Albany or Buffalo and back.
In between excursion seasons, hang it up by its tail as Art for the High Line.
At least all the water will drain out so it won't have freeze damage.

From someone who uses the High Line whenever possible...

After years of great, unfunded ideas, this railroad relic was preserved via reuse which has made it visible and vital to today's New Yorkers.

Rather than erase the railroad heritage (which could have easily been done) the High Line project incorporated homage to its past within the art and gardens that are its present and future.

It has made an improving area more trendy, and may very well serve as the example that saves the IT trestles in St. Louis, the RDG in Philly, the forementioned Chicago structure and others.

The project has taken an icon of railroading and embedded it in the daily lives of people in arguably the most influential city in the world... and it has become a tourist attraction in its own right..

Soooooo....

Why not focus big, audacious art around the High Line? It is an incredibly vibrant and hip part of NYC.

Is it ironic that steam locomotives weren't even permitted that far south on Manhattan? Sure.

Would it be nice to have a New York-related prototype like a Dreyfuss Hudson? Sure.

Is there a choice of dedicating $25 million to preservation vs art? Well, no. But, any investment in the High Line is an investment in railroad preservation.

Hang it, add some MegaSmoke fluid and a nice air-powered whistle. It's a replica, and it is art. And it will get the largest city in the world talking about a machine for which there are no other touchstones, no other memorials for, no other displays. Go for it. No actual trains will be harmed.


Rob

90% of those paintings are Modern and were exactly the kind of works attacked by conservative art critics when they were new for eschewing traditional aesthetics and values. It is interesting how a few decades later, something that was shockingly Modern might now be called "traditional."

Just to keep tabs on the High Line itself--the last phase is opening up.

Sounds like a grand project, and I'm glad New York kept this and didn't demolish it--but $35 million!! How do we raise money like that?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/arts/ ... .html?_r=0

The new section of the High Line apparently includes switch stands (ground throw) for visitors to play with, but minus any actual points or frogs they might get their shoes stuck in.

http://gothamist.com/2014/09/21/high_line_phase_three_is_officially.php#photo-3

-Philip Marshall

Hrrumph! If the people who run this park are so concerned about people catching shoes in points and frogs, then I wonder how they let the stands stay for play. The handles on those things aren't light, and it's not exactly impossible to drop the thing on your foot! And it's actually easier if you don't have the weight of the switch points and linkage to slow it down!

My thoughts exactly!

-Philip Marshall

I see the High Line quite a bit, but only get to use it every once in a while. Watching construction progress along the "new" part has been interesting. It has moved very quickly.

Whatever our personal ideas may be about what would make the High Line more "railroady" it stands as a monument to people who fought for its existence and those who had grand vision about its reuse. (BTW for those inclined, The Heath restaurant off the High Line at 27th Street is set around the theme of a Scottish train station circa 1940 (and a railroad-oriented rooftop bar, too).

How did $35 million flow their way? A number of reasons, some long fought and some recent. But I go back to my statement about vision.

The High Line is a grand project. It is not a series of small tactics added up. You don't get the funding (or results) without vision.

A casual reader of RYPN may note that vision is not always deemed a positive trait. Our community tends to laud tactics, but quickly tells those with vision how wrong they are. Paint brush in your hand = good. Audacious ideas = bad. Of course, it was the audacity of the vision Messers. Blount, Atwood, Hart, Gorman, et al that birthed rail preservation. The High Line has a bit of the spirit and it has delivered on the economic impact of the original vision.

Now image, lets say, if Kingston, NY had enough people with vision rather than myopia...

The point about it it brings attention to the Railroads, placing an engine in an oddball position brings attention to a concept. Its daring, sounds stupid but it brought its attention to this forum alright.

it would wake up millions of people to the railroads with this daring concept.

Yep, I think its dangerous to hang it as such only from some crane, it should require stronger support, some maliscious whomever could cause plenty of chaos. For the money, maybe they could shoot some of it to Ross to restore his engine...

As far as the money goes, new projects to build new rail lines today would cost billions, 25 million is a drop in the bucket in some places...

...about getting attention...reminds me of some Gal submitting a job application to an ad agency, she made it on a McDonalds Hamburger job application...

she was hired...

I propose a huge sculpture of a 32 oz. soda cup with the NYC logo on it.

Actually, that probably wouldn't be that controversial. The anti-Big Gulp contingent no longer resides in Gracie Mansion. That was mostly Bloomberg and his political groups doing.

Jeff Coons already got $3,000,000 to "research the feseabilety of this" from the Anaburg foundation. He also under pays people to make his art for him. This guy is such a twat the porn star he married coulden't syand him and devorced him.

But does he know how to spell?

dave

Touche'

(a different) Dave

You may know what you are talking about, but with poor communication skills, I'm not suprised you have trouble conveying this fact to others.

Yet another Dave.