Oblique Line is a new public space that connects the Highline to Moynihan Train Hall and beyond – to Sunnyside Yard, Queens.
The project is a hybrid park, combining recreation with transportation. Resurrecting the memory of high line as an elevated train line, the project incorporates a new subway line that will open an East-West transit corridor.
At less than 5% slope this fully accessible park creates a grand promenade to the Hudson Yards on one side, and a grand concourse connection to the Moynihan Train Hall on the other.
Oblique Line is supported by a line-in-continuum, coiling forward with energy from the Shed towards the Moynihan Train Hall, creating a new type of vaulting structure.
These coiling vaults define a series of exciting public spaces under the oblique plane, similar to the great vaults of New York, like the Guastavino Vaults underneath the Queensboro Bridge, or the Archway under Manhattan Bridge.
Paul Virilio on his seminal work on the Oblique Function wrote:
“And we are now confronted by the overriding necessity to accept as a historical fact the end of the vertical as axis of elevation, the end of horizontal as permanent plan, in order to defer to the oblique axis and the inclined plan, which realize all the necessary conditions for the creation of a new urban order and permit as well a total reinvention of the architectural vocabulary. This tipping of the plane must be understood for what it is: the third spatial possibility of architecture.”
The power of the oblique plane, is its ability to negotiate horizontal and the vertical and offer a third and perhaps a more powerful option. This third option offers a unique opportunity to connect layers of public space from highline, to the concourse level of Moynihan Train Hall.
As the center of gravity shifts towards West side of 34th Street with the Hudson Yards and Manhattan West Developments on the Far West Side, the connections to train lines to the East become more critical.
The project proposes a new train line, O Train that will connect Hudson Yards to Moynihan Hall, and will extend to create a greater connectivity for all the subway lines making Moynihan Hall more accessible. The further extension to Sunnyside Yard will be an important connection between the new developments in Manhattan’s Far West Side to the future developments in Queens.