Searching for Secrets | show | 2021 | Official Clip
Journey back in time to uncover buried tales in cities across the globe, following local guides and historians on a jour | dHNfRlFrSHNwX3JJWGM
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00:00 This is 10th Avenue on the west side of Manhattan.
00:07 It might look much like any other street in New York, but look again.
00:15 Notice those train tracks above 10th Avenue?
00:19 They're not part of New York's subway, and there's no train station nearby.
00:24 So what are they doing here?
00:26 So we're right here on 10th Avenue in the intersection with 26th Street, and I actually
00:30 have this photograph from about 100 years ago, and it's taken right in this spot.
00:45 And I think what's kind of cool is the first thing you notice in the photograph is that
00:48 there's a train, like a freight railroad train, in the middle of the road.
00:55 And in front of that train is a cowboy.
00:59 You don't really think about cowboys in New York City.
01:03 Why is a cowboy riding in front of a train on 10th Avenue?
01:14 The story begins in 1846 when the Hudson River Railroad opens a brand new line on the far
01:21 west side of Manhattan.
01:27 Its job is to serve the many meatpacking plants located around 10th Avenue.
01:35 So the problem was, this train was operating on this very busy avenue, and so it meant
01:41 that trains were hitting pedestrians, they were hitting cars, and people were dying.
01:48 This avenue was actually called Death Avenue because so many people died because of the
01:53 railroads.
01:56 As the deaths mount up, New Yorkers demand action.
02:01 The Hudson River Railroad had a real problem on their hands, and so in the 1850s, they
02:07 came up with kind of an unconventional solution.
02:14 Under orders from the city, they hired dozens of cowboys from cattle ranches out west to
02:19 come to New York and ride in front of their trains.
02:24 So here you end up with this kind of amazing situation where in New York City you've got
02:29 in the 1850s, cowboys on 10th Avenue waving red flags, warning people to get out of the
02:36 way of the freight trains coming down the avenue.
02:41 They were known as the Westside Cowboys.
02:46 The accidents continue, though, sending the overall death toll well above 400.
02:53 So eventually, in 1929, they decided that they were going to elevate the entire railroad
02:57 up 30 feet in the air.
03:02 And it's this track you can still see on 10th Avenue that is now known as the High Line.
03:13 So in 1933, the High Line opens.
03:16 13 miles of elevated highway, 105 street crossings eliminated.
03:23 This immediately solves the problem of pedestrians being killed, cars being hit.
03:30 It puts the Westside Cowboys out of a job.
03:33 The High Line was incredibly expensive and complicated to build.
03:37 It cost about $2 billion in today's dollars.
03:41 Over 600 buildings were destroyed.
03:45 That meant people and businesses were displaced so that we could get this dangerous railroad
03:49 off of ground level.
03:52 But for the High Line and other elevated railroads like it, the writing is on the wall.
04:00 When the High Line opens, it was already becoming economically obsolete.
04:06 They spent all of that money to build something right at a moment in time when the country
04:10 is shifting to the suburbs and shifting to interstate highways and tractor-trailers as
04:15 the means of distributing goods in the country.
04:25 In 1980, the High Line closes for good, then gets resurrected 30 years later as a park
04:32 and tourist attraction.
04:39 While Death Avenue is, thankfully, 10th Avenue once again.
04:43 [music]
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