DREAMING ON THE HIGHLINE

Yesterday, Harmattan Theater's proposal to the Highline to stage Henry Hudson's Forgotten Maps was rejected.  It is only the second week since the Highline opened its elevated thoroughfares to the world, and the rejection is an invitation to keep dreaming of projects on the Highline.  I began to dream images of what I would like to stage on the Highline after I saw the spectacular exhibit on the 750 designs that were submitted for the competition to design the Highline in early 2003.  The Highline invites people to dream.  It is a place of dreaming- surrounded by the light of the river and the refracted light of buildings-  the Highline allows people to float beyond the city for a moment.  The 750 dreams of that landmark competition was revealing- as they opened out the possibility of New York City's potential for adaptive reuse on a scale never imagined before.  Instead of soaring wings that continue to have to be scaled back as has been the case of Santiago Calatrava's design for the Ground Zero terminal, the people of New York literally float above the city, dreaming new dreams about impossible theater on the Highline.