N.Y. Park’s Success Brings Other Cities to Charity’s Door

The nonprofit group behind New York’s popular High Line park is fielding inquiries from cities eager to copy the Manhattan effort’s success, The New York Times says.

Officials from Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and several other cities have approached Friends of the High Line and toured the popular new park—built on an old elevated railway trestle that winds through New York’s meatpacking district—seeking advice and ideas about turning industrial relics into green urban amenities.

One concern for copycat projects is whether they can garner as much philanthropic support as the High Line, which boasted the designer Diane von Furstenberg and other business and social leaders as champions. Friends of the High Line raised $44-million of the $152-million cost of the park’s first two sections.

San Diego officials are backing creation of a nonprofit conservancy to help the cash-strapped city maintain its signature green space, 142-year-old Balboa Park, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The proposed agency would be charged with raising about $238-million for projects to restore the park.

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