[intro]A Dealer Builds a Backstop Against the High Line Crowds[/intro]

New York Magazine highlighted Marianne Boesky’s defensive maneuvers to shield her apartment’s terrace from the expanding High Line next fall. Situated above her Chelsea gallery, the terrace looks out over New York’s newest park:

In order to prepare for the eventual onslaught of strollers who will accompany the planned opening of the High Line’s second phase in fall 2010, Boesky commissioned landscape designer Paula Hayes to design the 2,400-square-foot outdoor space, including a beautiful buffer: a sixteen-foot-long driftwood wall. “We wanted a really earthy, natural setting to serve as a foil for the cement grid of Chelsea,” says Boesky. To block off the rest of the terrace, Hayes planted a network of fruit trees and bushes—right now flowering with plums, Concord grapes, raspberries, blueberries, and “aronia, for the birds”—along the perimeter, joining the wisteria and ivy that are taking over a chain-link fence. […] There’s a bronze sculpture called Old Maid, by the artist Liz Craft, curled up in one corner; a green birdhouse Boesky’s brother gave her; and glass-topped tables by Warren Platner. It feels like a “traditional wild garden,” says Boesky, that keeps the city at arm’s length.

Hiding from the High Line (New York Magazine)