Galleries and HighLine Views

IF a Manhattan neighborhood ever had a history of being on the far side of the tracks, it would have been the western part of Chelsea at the turn of the last century.

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For one thing, it clearly had so many of them — tracks, that is. Ninth Avenue clanged with the city’s first elevated railroad, and at-grade locomotives barreled lethally down “Death Avenue,” otherwise known as 11th. In addition, spur lines linked 12th Avenue’s hulking full-block warehouses, some with elevators large enough for entire train cars.

By the early 20th century, only a ragged mix of shanties, tenements and flophouses subsisted on these sooty, noisy thoroughfares. A century later, they were gone, replaced by car washes, art galleries and parking lots, though an element of seediness remained.

These days, some of those tracks are actually luring residents rather than scaring them off.

A railroad called the High Line ran on a rust-brown trestle just west of 10th Avenue across the neighborhood’s length. It’s in the process of being transformed into a milelong 4.8-acre park, complete with native grasses — flora not all that dissimilar to what’s sprouted there since the final train trip in 1980. The park’s first segment, from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, is to open next fall.

Developers aren’t waiting. Over the last decade, large high-rises started going up in West Chelsea, and the pace picked up in 2005 with the city’s rezoning of about 15 blocks to encourage more residential construction. Many of these new buildings become available for occupancy this year.

Although their designs and finishes will most likely rival the city’s finest, it’s the High Line that’s turning out to be the deal closer.

“I have to say it was a huge factor,” said Deborah McCormick, who owns a penthouse in the Vesta, a year-old 24-unit building. Her apartment has three bedrooms, three and a half baths and 2,500 square feet; it cost .6 million and overlooks the site of the new park.

She and her husband, Michael, had also considered a unit in High Line 519, on nearby West 23rd Street, demurring only upon learning that its views of the park might ultimately be obscured.

Still, the McCormicks have bet heavily on West Chelsea’s reinvention. They own a one-bedroom at 555 West 23rd Street, which they sublet, as well as a loft in the nearby Spears Building, one of the neighborhood’s first conversions, which their son Austin calls home.

“Every time I arrive, there’s something new,” said Ms. McCormick, a businesswoman who spends half the year in Montecito, Calif. “It’s almost on the verge of changing too much.”

But many longtime residents see that change as good, given what they suffered through in the 1980s when the neighborhood was at its low point.

“At one time everybody on my block had either been mugged or had their house broken into,” said Joanne Downs, who owns a brick 1835 Greek Revival town house.

The four-story structure has three bedrooms, four baths and 3,200 square feet, including a separate top-floor apartment. Among its special features are wide-plank pine floors and six working fireplaces.

It cost ,000 in 1971 but might sell for million today, based on prevailing town house prices, said Ms. Downs, a retired nursing professor.

But she is puzzled by the appeal of the High Line; as its transformation continues, its overpasses still block westward views to the Hudson River, she said, echoing some of her neighbors, and the tall buildings rising alongside it have only worsened matters.

“It would have been nice to have torn it down, since it’s really sort of ugly,” Ms. Downs said. “I’m surprised that people want to live on it.”

What You’ll Find

West Chelsea’s redevelopment has proceeded in a patchwork manner. Some blocks, anchored by car dealerships and storage facilities, are still dark and quiet at night.

Others, like West 24th Street, now have rows of apartments and galleries, which through their large windows spill warm light onto the sidewalks.

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