High Line Section 2 & Rainbow City Opening in New York. Photos & text by Glenn Belverio

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Dear Shaded Viewers,

Last night Nadine Johnson invited us to the opening cocktail for Rainbow City, an installation of air-filled sculptures, and its accompanying beer garden, The Lot on Tap. They’re at the foot of the new section of the High Line (which opened to the public after much anticipation late yesterday afternoon) and was created in a partnership with AOL. After a cocktail and some Oktoberfest-style pretzels (although I stuck to the French radishes), AOL media wonks and the rest of us took our first stroll down Section 2 of the High Line.

 

Rainbow City in The Lot

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The avant-garde birdhouses were a big topic of discussion and we all wondered what kind of birds would be moving in. Too bad NEST magazine is no longer around–they could have done an interiors story on how the birds decorated their new digs.

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My date for the evening, singer Carole Pope.

Me enjoying my first vodka-and-lemonade of the summer

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The now-classic Section 1 of the High Line. Be warned if you want to use the loo after dark–they’ve installed a talking computer that’s straight out of a dystopian sci-fi story. It shouts aphorisms at you while you’re peeing or washing your hands, that range from calming (“Your internal organs have achieved inner harmony in this bathroom”) to totalitarian (“This sink is NOT for SHAVING or TRIMMING!”) I kept waiting for a laser beam to shoot out of the urinal and kill me, like a bathroom version of Carousel in “Logan’s Run.”

Love,

Glenn Belverio

Glenn Belverio

Glenn Belverio is a writer and New Yorker. He has been reporting for ASVOF since 2005 and currently works at The Museum of Modern Art as the Content Manager for MoMA Design Store.