In 1847, New York City authorized street-level railroad tracks along the West Side in Manhattan. Even with hired men riding horses and waving flags in front of the trains for safety, many accidents occurred between freight trains and other traffic. Eventually, 10th Avenue became known as "Death Avenue".
After years of public debate, in 1929 an improvement project began. In 1980 the last train carrying carloads of frozen chickens ran.It's come a long way with a long history, and even though trains no longer run along the tracks the improvement project continued and has renewed the space as a walking path with wild flowers and grass growing as a remembrance of the plants that used to grow wildly across the tracks. It's not bad. In fact, it looks pretty good now, with great views of the river. We took nature away to build a city, and now we put nature back when we stopped using that portion of the city.
