Annik LaFarge is a native New Yorker who currently lives in a Chelsea loft in view of the High Line. In August 2009, two months after the park opened, she started the blog Livin' The High Line, where she documented the construction of section two (extending between 20th - 30th Streets) with hundreds photographs as the project unfolded, season by season, over a period of two years.
Gradually the blog evolved into a larger contemplation of the entire High Line: its gardens, design, railroad history, and the unique place it occupies in the hearts and lives of New Yorkers. In 2011 Annik introduced a new feature, "Urban Greenways," to report on projects in cities around the United States and the world that have created parks and green spaces from former railways and industrial infrastructure.
Annik lectures widely on the High Line and its impact around the world, and has spoken to educational groups, students, businesses, libraries, and more. A serious amateur photographer, she uses hundreds of photographs — including archival images, maps, and aerial and rooftop photos — to illustrate her talks. [Click here for more information.] She has contributed photographs to both versions, print and digital, of ON THE HIGH LINE, and her photographs have appeared in various magazines and online publications.
Rick Darke (Preface, selected text contributions and photographs) is a widely published author, photographer, lecturer and consultant focused on regional landscape design, planning, conservation, and enhancement. He has been photographing and writing about the High Line since 2002, and contributed a selection of photographs -- of the viaduct when it was wild and since it opened as a park -- to the print and digital versions of ON THE HIGH LINE.
Rick's books include The American Woodland Garden: Capturing the Spirit of the Deciduous Forest, which received the American Horticultural Society's Book Award, the Garden Writers Association Golden Globe Award for book photography, and the National Arbor Day Foundation's Certificate of Merit. He is an internationally recognized authority on the use of grasses in designed and managed landscapes and his
book, The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes is the world's most complete individual reference on the subject. Rick is also the author of The Wild Garden and the Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses. His collaboration with Doug Tallamy, The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden, will be published in July 2014. For more information about Rick's work and to see his lecture schedule, visit RickDarke.com. Find his videos on YouTube.