NEW YORK — In the warrens of Manhattan, a meadow hovers above the asphalt outwash of warehouses and abandoned factories.
It flowers on a vacant viaduct with a seasonal canopy of Queen Anne's lace, purple aster, hyacinth, wild cherry, scallions, moss and iris -- seeded by vagrant birds and the wind.
They call it the High Line.
The derelict ribbon of elevated railway threads through the upper stories of Manhattan's far West Side for almost 1 1/2 miles.
The tracks, unused for nearly a quarter-century, disappear into warehouses and dodge between buildings in an architectural game of hide-and-seek.
While thousands of people scurry under its stained steel supports every day, unaware of what is overhead, the High Line has become nature's own urban renewal project.
Ambitious redevelopment plans also are blooming here.
Where generations of New Yorkers had only seen a rusting eyesore that blocked the light, two urban pioneers saw the potential for a park in a metropolis starved for open space. After all, local soccer leagues play matches on a rooftop and golfers practice fairway drives on a pier.
When freelance writer Joshua David and painter Robert Hammond first followed their curiosity over a barbed-wire fence onto the High Line five years ago, they found themselves on an elevated avenue of greenery that overlooked the art galleries of Chelsea and the designer boutiques of the Meatpacking District -- two of the city's newly fashionable neighborhoods.
To the west, there were shimmering vistas of the Hudson River; to the east, the Empire State Building towered.
The abandoned railway, the pair realized, could become a place where pedestrians could stroll unimpeded for 22 blocks, suspended nearly 30 feet in places above the hustle of the streets.
"It is a beautiful, dreamy, evocative landscape ... a unique urban ecosystem," David said. "Yet it was relatively invisible."
People can't easily reach the High Line from the street. The stairways have vanished and the entrances -- although hidden -- are protected by padlocks and railroad security.
David and Hammond were galvanized by the idea that an open space of such magnitude could exist in New York City and that no one could get to it.
