The Lowline is a proposed project that will turn an abandoned subway station under Delancey Street into a verdant, subterranean answer to the High Line. Obviously, such an ambitious project will require a lot of planning to pull off. Wired reports that Lowline visionaries Daniel Barasch and James Ramsey have launched a Kickstarter to help them fund the Lowline Lab, a preliminary project meant to provide proof of concept for the actual Lowline. The labs will create an above-ground testing area to try out the technology needed to support the underground park.
The main thing they’ll be testing is the solar tech that will pull in sunlight and refract it underground to nourish the vegetation down there. The lab will be housed inside of a Lower East Side warehouse that will mimic the conditions of the tunnel.
If this works out, it will be an early step on the way to making the Lowline a reality. It will cost an estimated $72 million to build the park. Section 3 of the High Line, the smallest and newest section most comparable to the football-field-sized Lowline, cost $35 million. The team behind the Lowline hopes to begin building as early as 2018.
(Image: The Lowline)
