New York Campus

Chelsea High Line in NYC

A Chelsea Landmark, a Rich History and Directly on the High Line

The R. C. Williams Company, a grocery wholesaler, chose this location for its warehouse because of the planned elevation of the railroad lines. The former railroad bed is now the High Line.

A Rich History

Avenues’ New York City flagship campus will soon take shape within the walls of a historic building in the Landmark District of Chelsea, a fast-growing and vibrant Manhattan neighborhood. The building’s rich architectural history and adjacency to New York City’s new High Line will be celebrated in its transformation into one of the finest schooling facilities in Manhattan.

Cass Gilbert, the legendary architect responsible for the Woolworth Building, New York Life Building, the U.S. Customs House and the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., designed this building for R. C. Williams, a wholesale grocery company. The ten-story, 215,000-square-foot warehouse located on Tenth Avenue at 25th Street was completed in 1928. Made of reinforced concrete, the building has remained in remarkably good condition, and the construction technique used provided Avenues with a broad range of design possibilities.

The expansion of the High Line to 30th Street opened in the spring of 2011. Photo by Flickr user bobmorton

R. C. Williams Company selected this location because of the proposed replacement of New York Central Railroad’s at-grade tracks along Tenth Avenue with an elevated and electrified freight line that would run immediately adjacent to the site. On August 1, 1933, the building Avenues will occupy accepted the very first carload of freight delivered on the elevated line. Subsequently abandoned, the elevated freight line has now been transformed into the High Line.

Directly on the High Line

A public park constructed on the elevated abandoned rail line, the High Line is located on Manhattan’s West Side and runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. Section one of the High Line, which opened to the public on June 9, 2009, runs from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street and has already welcomed more than two million visitors. Section two, running from 20th Street to 30th Street, will open in spring 2011. Avenues’ third floor dining halls and public spaces will offer a direct visual connection to the “woodland flyover” portion of the High Line, a densely tree-lined zone with an elevated walkway that provides an unusually green park-like setting in West Chelsea’s historic urban district. This setting will allow Avenues’ design team to make the light, greenery and distinct change of seasons an integral part of the building’s visual experience for students.

With the help of Perkins Eastman’s architectural design and Bonetti/Kozerski Studio’s interior design, Avenues has a unique opportunity to become an integrated part of a remarkable New York City park. For more information about this exciting public amenity and its public art and schools programs, please visit On the High Line or visit the High Line’s web site at www.thehighline.org.

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