Sometimes the bold goals we set out to achieve actually happen, and sometimes something even more amazing happens - something better than we can imagine.
Usually that happens because of the people we meet along the way, the conversations we have, the unexpected connections we make that open up new doors - in a word, Serendipity. I had always wondered about what amazing, powerful and sustained conversations led to the High Line Park in New York City becoming a reality.
Have you walked the High Line? Literally millions of people a year walk some of its 1.45 mile length, enjoying expansive views of the city and hundreds of local plantings, as well as amazing art installations. But it was slated for demolition and considered an eyesore and a relic, as long ago as the 1980s.
Built in 1933, it was at the time a revolutionary elevated train line that was colloquially called the Lifeline of New York City since it was regularly bringing millions of tons of meat, dairy and produce by rail, directly into the warehouses and factories of lower manhattan for preparation and distribution. The rail line wasn’t just a lifeline because of the food it brought, it also moved the rail lines safely above the city’s growing traffic - in the 1910s, hundreds of people were killed by the ground-level trains that ran in the middle of the bustling 10th avenue!
By the 1960s the line was growing obsolete due to the rise of trucking, and by the 1980s, it was a hulking relic of the past.
In 1999, Robbie Hammond, my guest for this conversation, co-founded the Friends of the High Line along with Joshua David. The two met at a local community board meeting where the High Line’s future was being discussed. Rudy Guliani, NYC’s mayor at the time, had signed an executive order for its demolition - many property owners wanted it gone so they could take back the land occupied by the tracks and build bigger buildings - a dream of greater square footage and increased rent rolls.
Currently Robbie is the President & Chief Strategy Officer for Therme Group US, where he is leading an initiative to bring large scale bathing facilities to the United States. He also currently serves on the boards for Little Island, Sauna Aid, Grounded Solutions Network, and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
When I was a little kid in NYC in the 80s, I looked up at the hulking tracks and thought “what the hell is that doing in the middle of the city?!” Many adults thought the same thing.
Robbie and Josh looked at the tracks and thought “we should really do something cool with that instead of tearing it down.”
In 2009 the first section of the high line opened to the public. In 2019 and 2023 new sections were completed.
Against all odds, “two neighborhood nobodies” (as one writer described them!) created a coalition, learned to raise money and garner the favorable attention of local politicians, and persisted and succeeded. The park is maintained, operated, and programmed by Friends of the High Line in partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation and is run on donations.
There are many amazing angles to the story of the Highline:
Maybe you DON’T need a coherent or complete Vision or Mission?!
Robbie makes it clear that they didn’t even have a clear vision or strategic plan for some time…just the idea that the elevated line was worth saving and doing something with…they discovered what they wanted to create along the way. He actually credits the vagueness of the mission with creating a “big tent” that attracted more people to the organization.
From a conventional dream to something better than anyone could imagine
One surprising insight is that the property owners had a rather conventional dream - tear the elevated tracks down so they could build bigger. Turning the High Line into a park seemed like a low-value, impossible pipedream - sex workers and drug users congregated under the overpasses, after all! But the High Line’s millions of visitors have transformed the value of the area far beyond the addition of a few extra square feet.
The High Line as a symbol for dreamers of impossible dreams
One of Robbie’s greatest points of pride is that the High Line now stands as a symbol to many “crazy dreamers” who find inspiration in the story of outsiders persisting and accomplishing more than they ever dreamed possible. The High Line is now a global inspiration for cities to transform unused industrial zones into dynamic public spaces. But Robbie loves the personal stories of folks who come up to him at talks, who are working on all sorts of projects and who find inspiration in Robbie and Josh’s “keep going against all odds” story.
The importance of Talking to People
Robbie talks about how he was always willing to pick up the phone and talk to anyone - the fearlessness of someone raised in sales. But the Friends of the High Line were also willing to host conversations with community groups and listen to them, and learn from them and communicate with them about why they were listening to their ideas and why, in some cases, they weren’t going to. Open lines of consistent communication made the High Line possible.
The Alchemy of the Co-Founder Relationship
In this conversation, Robbie is bracingly reflective and shines a sometimes harsh light on himself. Here at the 15th anniversary of the opening of the Highline and the 25th anniversary of the start of the project, the founding of the Friends of the High Line, Robbie looks back and is refreshingly honest about his own challenges and shortcomings, as well as missed opportunities along the way to do things differently.
What was truly surprising to me in this conversation is that Robbie was so open about his challenges as a co-founder, and is so open-eyed about how essential this most intimate of relationships can be…and how much he and Josh were willing to invest (in time, energy and resources) in that relationship to keep it intact, functional and flourishing.
The Energy and Anxiety of Creation
Robbie suggests that it is common for creative people (which includes entrepreneurs, and anyone that starts anything) to have a drive to accomplish their dream - that is what keeps them going… but that there is often “an undercurrent of anxiety”. Meditation helped Robbie reclaim a higher level of happiness as the High Line approached realization, but it took him years to undo the deep grooves anxiety etched in his psyche. It's a worthwhile lesson for anyone listening out there who's creating something, start taking care of yourself sooner rather than later.
You can follow Robbie on Instagram at thehighlineguy and stay in the loop on Therme’s projects at https://www.thermegroup.com/.
Links, Quotes, Notes, and Resources
https://www.instagram.com/thehighlineguy
Robbie’s Book: The Highline:The Inside Story
https://www.thehighline.org/history/
Early documents from the highline: Reclaiming The High Line: A Project Of The Design Trust For Public Space With Friends Of The High Line (2002)
Talks:
"High Line: The Inside Story of New York City's Park in the Sky" - Richard Hammond
https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_hammond_building_a_park_in_the_sky
More About Robbie Hammond
Currently Robert is the President & Chief Strategy Officer for Therme Group US, where he is leading an initiative to bring large scale bathing facilities to the United States. Prior to joining Therme Group US, Robert served as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the High Line for over two decades. Alongside Joshua David he led in the transformation of an abandoned elevated railway line in Manhattan into an iconic urban park.
Under his leadership, the High Line grew to become one of the most beloved public spaces in the United States, attracting eight million annual visitors annually with its innovative design, public art program, and community programming. Inspiring adaptive reuse projects around the world, he also created the High Line Network to foster community and share best practices among leaders of other infrastructure renewal projects. He was also instrumental in building youth and educational partnerships to engage young New Yorkers as environmental stewards and civic leaders. He has won over two dozen national and international awards for his work.
A certified Vedic meditation teacher, Robert has served as a consultant or advisor for myriad companies and organizations, including the Times Square Alliance, Alliance for the Arts, and the National Cooperative Bank. He served as an ex-officio member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Board of Trustees, as well as Liberty Expedia, a formerly publicly traded travel company. He currently serves on the boards for Little Island, Sauna Aid, Grounded Solutions Network, and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
AI Generated Summary
Robbie and Daniel discussed the importance of understanding conversations that led to significant outcomes, reflecting on successes and challenges of the High Line project. Robbie emphasized the necessity for coaching and mentorship to navigate challenges effectively, given the significant conflicts and reconciliation with their co-founder. Robbie explained the collaborative and adaptive approach taken in the project. They discussed the unexpected success of the Highline, and the skepticism it faced, as well as the project's influence on other initiatives.
Key Points
-Robbie recounts a critical juncture in the High Line project where tensions arose between him and Josh, leading to the realization of the necessity for coaching and mentorship to navigate challenges effectively. 9:04
- Robbie explains the collaborative and adaptive approach taken in the project, where they listened to community input and gradually developed a vision based on feedback and shared sentiments. 24:37
- Robbie discusses how the Highline made ambitious projects more credible and less impossible, impacting various stakeholders positively. 32:14
- Robbie mentions the unexpected success and visitor numbers of the Highline, contrasting initial projections with actual figures and discussing political influences. 37:41
- Robbie talks about their approach to the new Therme project, highlighting the importance of coalition building and organizing, leading to a discussion about the evolving culture of bathing in North America and plans for a gathering of industry innovators. 46:21
Full AI Transcript
Daniel Stillman 00:00
I'll officially welcome you to the conversation factory. I'm ready. Thank you so much for making the time for this again. I have a very, very distinct memory. I grew up in New York City, and I remember being in the car. I don't know, I must have been, like, six, seven, going from the Upper west side somewhere downtown where my parents needed to go shopping and going. I have a memory of going under the highline and being like, what the hell is that? And. And it's just kind of unbelievable. You've been on my want to talk to list for a long time, and I'm so grateful you said yes. I literally mentioned this. Talking to our mutual friend Michael, I was like, I've always wanted to talk to the people behind making this crazy thing happen, because it's just a whole bunch of conversations that happened that didn't have to happen, that wouldn't have happened otherwise. And so that's why I'm so excited to have a conversation with you. I just. I wanted to go on the record of saying.
Robbie Hammond 01:09
I like talking about it.
Daniel Stillman 01:11
That's good. What are your favorite kinds of conversations? First of all, we can start there. You know, I mean, I like people.
Robbie Hammond 01:18
Say, do you get talk about. You get sick of talking about the high line? And I guess I never get sick of talking about how the highline was started, because it's a good story that has a good ending. I was talking about the things we could have done differently. Now, in hindsight, sometimes I'm criticized for talking about too much of, like, the highline's mistakes or failures, which I just think it's sometimes interesting to learn from some of the challenges we've had or as interesting as learning from the successes.
Daniel Stillman 01:54
Yeah. Reflective.
Robbie Hammond 01:56
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 01:57
Of both. So, like, when I hear your favorite kinds of conversations these days, especially around the high line, it's making sure that you're looking at it holistically, which I love.
Robbie Hammond 02:05
Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it's. It's especially poignant. I mean, even just this week is. This week is the 15th anniversary, or maybe last week, of of it opening, the first phase.
Daniel Stillman 02:19
Wow.
Robbie Hammond 02:20
And next month will be the 25th anniversary of us starting. So I've been thinking a lot about it lately.
Daniel Stillman 02:30
Yeah, it's intense because it's so funny. I wondered all these years, and then I didn't realize you all wrote a book. And I will just say, like, for people who are listening, the sort of discursive style or the discursive style of the two of you, Josh and you talking through the. How the blow by blow is really cool and answered so many of my questions and in a way, like, I don't want to talk about the how in the sense of, like, what happened, but I'm really curious about the, the how in terms of how you kept facing it. And I think the question I have, there's this quote of the success of an intervention depends on the inner state or the inner condition of the intervener. And when Michael shared your bio with me, I didn't realize that you were a meditation teacher and that that Veda philosophy was potentially part of your worldview. That just made me think about, like, well, what was Robbie's inner state in facing this long journey? What about your inner work makes you an effective intervener, do you think?
Robbie Hammond 03:48
Yeah, well, I think it's. I would say my inner state now is very different than it was then. If I had to sum up my inner state when I started the high line, I would say anxiety and depression and general unhappiness. So for the vast majority of the time, I came to meditate because of that, I had sought out. I'd wanted to learn to meditate maybe since my mid twenties because I couldn't sleep at night. And I don't know, I just generally say I was unhappy. And so I tried a dozen different kinds. And so I didn't actually start meditating regularly until a few months before we opened. So the ten years from when we started in 99 to when we opened it in 2009, I would say, you know, I was not very happy. So that's sort of an interesting. I mean, most people that met me would have said that I seemed very happy. I was very. Part of the reason I was good at starting the highline is I'm very good at sales, I'm charismatic, I'm good at getting people excited about things.
Daniel Stillman 04:57
Yeah, I had a lot.
Robbie Hammond 04:59
In some ways, I had a lot of positive energy that people were excited about, and I could rally people around that.
Daniel Stillman 05:05
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 05:06
But I remember one time, Josh and I, the other co founder, a few times, we had to get coaches because we sometimes just struggled, as many co founders to do, to sort of figure out how to keep working together. And I had this one coach, a guy named Edmund Bingham, and he took me, our offices were in a NYCHA housing project. We had these tiny offices and there was no privacy. So he took me in a closet, a maintenance closet, and videotaped me on a VHS video recorder. And he basically talked to me for 30 minutes. And I thought it was like pre coaching because he would sort of like grill me, sort of harass me, then, like, compliment me, you know? And so I was, like, thinking, okay, we're just. We're getting ready to start the coaching. But then after 30 minutes, he said, okay, and he reround the tape, and he said, I'm gonna leave, and I'm gonna let you watch this tape. And when I. When he played the tape, I just looked so unhappy. And every once in a while, I would smile, and I'd be like, oh, my gosh. Keep smiling. You look so nice when you smile. Can you keep smiling? And then I'd go back to, like, frowning. My face just looked unhappy. I actually have that cassette. I saved it. I've never gone back and looked at it again, but I have it somewhere around my desk because it's a VHS and I can't play it. But I wanted to get it converted to see it. But that was a really pivotal time for me. It was probably three years into starting it.
Daniel Stillman 06:43
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 06:44
Oh, my God. I gotta be. Not for the sake of the high line, really, but for my own sake, that, like, you know, and when we had successes, you know, I'd act excited about it for the team, but I wasn't personally that excited about it.
Daniel Stillman 07:01
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 07:04
Because there's this underlying, I don't know, feeling of anxiety and depression. So.
Daniel Stillman 07:08
Yeah. So that's a really effective change model, as it turns out.
Robbie Hammond 07:13
What's interesting is I don't think it's that uncommon for creative people or. And definitely sort of entrepreneurs or people that start something.
Daniel Stillman 07:19
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 07:20
Because they're often driven. You know, when you ask what keeps you going, there's, like, the dream, but there's also this undercurrent of anxiety. Yeah. And I don't know. It's an interesting combination. And so it really took me, even after learning to meditate, it's taken me a long time to just generally feeling sort of more of a base level of happiness. 25 years later.
Daniel Stillman 07:53
25 years later. Congratulations on both of those anniversaries.
Robbie Hammond 08:00
Always there. But it's just a lot. It's just dramatically different. If I think back, my life was, like, in 99. I started it.
Daniel Stillman 08:08
Yeah. And I saw this in. In the interviews that, you know, reading through the dialogue, it was like, oh, we're. We're the people who could get a million dollar check and then just keep going.
Robbie Hammond 08:20
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 08:21
Right. And, yeah, we would.
Robbie Hammond 08:23
And that's something Josh and I shared, is, yeah, we would act excited for the people around us, but then we would go in a room and say, okay, well, now we need to do X, Y, Z and ABC.
Daniel Stillman 08:37
Yeah. When in your relationship or how did the conversation start that you two should get some coaching? I really didn't know much about that. It's a really interesting. I've done a series of interviews with co founders around how they work through, you know, birthing something together when there's. It can be a very chaotic and challenging marriage. So at some point, you and Josh were like, we've got to work on this for the sake of the project and for ourselves.
Robbie Hammond 09:04
Yeah, no, I know. I remember exactly when it was. It was 2003,
Robbie Hammond 09:12
I think in the beginning of the summer. We were. It was early. It was still really early in the project. Bloomberg had gotten on board, but we didn't have any money. We didn't really have a lot of momentum then. We were still being sued by the property owners to tear it down. And city was recovering from 911. And so to sort of show progress or to have something to do, and people didn't even know what the highline was. We did an ideas competition where we said, okay, it doesn't even have to be realistic ideas. It just has, which people said was crazy, because this was already considered a crazy project. So why are you asking for crazy ideas? But it really hit a nerve in that we got 720 entries at the time. It was the largest ideas competition from. And at the time, you had to mail in giant boards. It wasn't digital. And so I had really pushed to nothing, only do this ideas competition. But I wanted an exhibition in Grand Central. I wanted to do a publication. I wanted to do a video. And it was all going to culminate in our summer benefit. And so we were in this room in the stairrett Lehigh building, where we were storing all these entries. And then the entries were made with, like, rubber glue because they would have cardboard or these poster boards, but then.
Daniel Stillman 10:45
People would glue them. And so the good old days must.
Robbie Hammond 10:49
Have was, like, reeking of this headache inducing smell. And Josh and I had been going through looking at these 720 entries. Never imagined you'd get that many. And we both had headaches. And I was sort of pushing to yet add something else to the thing. And he was fed up because he felt like I was coming up with all these ideas, and then he was having to execute them. And he was like, I don't even want to do all this stuff. Why are we doing all this stuff? This isn't even, you know. And we just, we got really just angry at each other. And we usually didn't. We had conflict, but it wasn't, like, out there in the open, and that's where I. I was like, okay, this isn't. One of us is gonna leave, you know, one of us. And I think both of us, intuitive or not even intuitively, it was pretty obvious we needed each other. Like, we couldn't do this. We couldn't do it emotionally, on our own or skill wise, or, like, it just wasn't gonna happen. And so I had this mentor, Edmund Bingham, who I met in Hong Kong when I was doing construction work in Hong Kong back in 91, who's this sort of unique guy. And he offered to help us for free. And so he did these sessions, but he mainly just did these video things. And then. But you could see what it was like dealing with. I could see what Josh was experiencing working with me, just watching one videotape, I was like, wow, this guy is, like, intense and not happy and not fun. And then he sent me a. He would send you a typewritten letter on a typewriter that even then, no one used. Typewriters.
Daniel Stillman 12:49
Yeah, I remember 2003, more or less.
Robbie Hammond 12:53
And so, you know, he basically just talked about. And he met with us together as well, and just talked about some of the things we needed. And I don't remember what he said in the letter, but I remember paying deep attention to it at the time. And I kept that piece of paper. I looked back on it, and it was enough to get us sort of back on track.
Daniel Stillman 13:14
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 13:15
Then over time, we had, I think, a total of, like, three different, you know, coaches or founders, therapists, whoever you want to call them, to help us at different times, because it was a really. I mean, it was a great relationship, but it was also, you know, just. It was just hard. There was a lot of stress and pressure, and so we often. It often came out at each other or around each other, and we were dramatically different kinds of people in some ways.
Daniel Stillman 13:48
Yes.
Robbie Hammond 13:49
And so, yeah, but I now even more realize that I was the executive director for most of the time, and I was more of the outward leader, and we were always co founders. We always made decisions together. But I had more of the business background, marketing. He was a travel writer, and I. And I was probably the one that was a little more driven and competitive. And so in some ways, I took more. Some of the leadership role, but now I realize that I just. I would have, that I needed him, not just with all the things he brought. He was a great writer. He's a great communicator. He was great as a press. So many things he became one of the best fundraisers. Although he hated fundraising at first, it really was the alchemy of just us working together that made it possible that I just would never have done it on my own. I mean, whether I could have or couldn't have, it just. It's, like, irrelevant because I wouldn't have done it without him.
Daniel Stillman 15:07
It's so beautiful, and it's really. I'm curious. During those two or three different sort of periods when you more intentionally worked on your relationship, it sounds like you learned something or came back to the relationship with more intentionality or a refreshed perspective. What do you think you were shifting or changing on purpose that allowed you to keep nourishing the relationship and continue to work together over time?
Robbie Hammond 15:33
I mean, I would put a lot of the blame on me. I was the harder one, I think, to deal, like, and it's funny. Cause people that are my friends, even people know me really well, they think I'm really nice. But in a work context, I'm not always really nice. Like, I'm not proud of the number of people that would leave my office crying. He never left my office crying by the time we got an office.
Daniel Stillman 15:58
Right.
Robbie Hammond 15:59
But I was just really driven and I think more aggressive.
Daniel Stillman 16:03
Yes.
Robbie Hammond 16:04
And always wanted to add more and more and more. And often he felt like he was the one holding the bag or having to do a lot of the work, and I was the one that kept adding to it. And on the other hand, I think I pushed him more than he probably would have done. So that was our balance.
Robbie Hammond 16:28
Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, partly I'm grateful for his patience. And then there came to a point where I left, and then I came back and he left, where the relationship really frayed. It was really tense between us for a few years, and then I came back, and then he came back and started working with us. And then during COVID we needed a lot of help, and he really came back and was really helping really intensely during COVID And then I decided to leave, and he took over when I left, while they were searching for a replacement, and he ran it for a year. I mean, they wanted him to run it, and he didn't. He just said, I'll do it for a year. But it really. I think that really brought us back together. Covid, in some ways, and we just shared something that only us shared in this experience, in this process of that really. It's really special. I think both of us sort of became grateful for the. Yeah, for what we. Or I can say it for myself. I just became so grateful for what he brought, you know, to me, that sometimes I overlooked when I was in it because I just wanted to do it my way, you know?
Daniel Stillman 17:58
Well, it's interesting because I love the story you tell in 1999 being like, I just assumed someone was working on this and I could just help them. And the two of you meeting at the board meeting and being like, well, I'm kind of busy. I don't know if I can do this. And the other one being like, well, I'm also busy, so maybe, you know, it's kind of like, not it. Almost playing a game of not it.
Robbie Hammond 18:19
Yeah, well, neither one of us wanted to. I mean, we weren't even, like, thinking, would we build an elevated part? I mean, we were just like, oh, someone should save it, and someone else should do all this. Like, we didn't. It wasn't thought out that this was a job, really, at all, you know, and he was a travel writer. My background was in. I was a history major, and I was doing, you know.com, startups in the nineties. So it wasn't really on either one of our horizons, of a career horizon, and really did. I did think. Both of us thought, we're just okay, no one else is going to do it, so let's get it started, and someone else will take it on.
Daniel Stillman 19:00
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 19:00
And then we pretty quickly realized no one else wanted to take it on, and it was going to happen. We had to do it, but. And I didn't. I don't think I started doing it really full time for a few years, you know, for a few years first, we were both just doing it as volunteers.
Daniel Stillman 19:18
So one of the things I've been thinking about is, like, you know, when I was reading your story is one of the conversational superpowers that I. That I see in you, at least in the story, is your willingness to pick up the phone and just call someone. It certainly was something Josh said. That wasn't my. That wasn't his conversational superpower.
Robbie Hammond 19:44
Yeah, I'm looking.
Daniel Stillman 19:45
So he's pulling out a giant box of files. Everyone. The camera. The camera reverberated with the shake
Robbie Hammond 19:52
I, like, had all the shit there that I, like, kept over 23 years. But these are these notebook pages that I would write in. This is basically how I did the highlight. Like, I never took out a notebook, you know, these notebook, and, like, wrote down plans. Nowhere is there, like, strategy or. All of these pages are just people's names and their phone numbers and maybe a comment by them. And that's literally how my part of doing it, you know, Josh was a great writer, so he was doing a lot of writing, but I would literally write someone down. Someone would give me, I'd call them, like, this page has a lot of art people on it. And, you know, I was calling people that had art galleries to see if they would support us, and then they would give me someone else. And then here's someone from the Daily News that ended up writing an op ed for us, you know, so, yeah, and so I was also used to a lot of, I'd done a lot of sales, so I was used to rejection a lot of it. Most of these people's names, you know, weren't, didn't lead anywhere Yes, a few of them did. And really, they paid off. And, and I think the high line, sometimes I criticize the high line because we didn't involve, there were parts of the neighborhood that really didn't feel connected to it. But there are, I think, thousands of people in the city that felt like they played a critical role in the Highline, and they really did. You know, there's literally, I mean, I still remember all the names of the first donors. I still remember the names of all of these early community people. I remember all the names of the first art galleries that supported us. I remember the name, all these people that worked in the Bloomberg administration, obviously, Mayor Bloomberg, Patty Harris, Dan Doktorov, Amanda Burden, were critical, but there were so many people that worked for those people that were also just so instrumental in making it happen.
Daniel Stillman 22:03
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I see that conversational superpower in you. I'm wondering what you see as the, the approach that you brought to the dialogues you were having. Like, what, what do you think you're doing? Well, when you were doing your best in the things that you were doing.
Robbie Hammond 22:20
Yeah, well, I know I'm not, I'm not particularly eloquent. You know, I'm not a, I don't really prepare for conversations. I don't really prepare for PowerPoints or presentations. You know, I do a lot of talks, and so I just have slides and I just talk to the slides, and I've watched other people give a similar kind of presentation, and they just give a completely different one. It's much more eloquent. It's much more like theory. And so what I feel like I bring is a lot of enthusiasm to it, and so that can carry over a lot of, like, memorize remembering a whole bunch of, or having a very well thought out strategy of explaining something.
Daniel Stillman 23:09
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 23:09
And especially when you're trying to basically was trying to sell someone an idea that most people thought was crazy. Sometimes the enthusiasm, you know, trumps the eloquence.
Daniel Stillman 23:24
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 23:25
And that's what's so interesting, going back to the original conversation, is that, you know, it was, that enthusiasm was right there, side by side, that anxiety and depression.
Daniel Stillman 23:38
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 23:41
So it's interesting because I think part of enthusiasm is like this excitement, you know, that you try to infect people with.
Daniel Stillman 23:49
Yes.
Robbie Hammond 23:51
Come along. Even if it's likely not to happen, especially in those early few years. I mean, the chances were very, very, I mean, no one could have said the chances were likely that this was going to happen.
Daniel Stillman 24:03
No. No. Well, I think in a way.
Robbie Hammond 24:06
Does that answer your question, is that.
Daniel Stillman 24:08
It gets to it? And I think there's so, like, there's two things or two other things that I observed. One you talked about in one of your talks, the community listening sessions that you did.
Robbie Hammond 24:19
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 24:21
The importance of getting input early without a fully fledged design and then actually communicating with people afterwards. Why you are aren't listening to what they're saying and bringing in pieces of what they're saying into the design and communicating that.
Robbie Hammond 24:37
Yeah, yeah. No, that was, I mean, part of it made it easier is we did not have a vision of what it should be, you know, so that most people say, well, that's the most important thing is to have a really clear vision of what you're trying to do. And our vision was sort of like, well, let's stop it from being demolished and let's think about something that could be happening here. But, you know, that's a very, and because we weren't architects or designers or city planners, we didn't really have, and he and I envisioned different things. I mean, he really, I think, saw it more as a site for architecture or maybe different things where I really, I don't know, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't even that clear. And so it wasn't the case where we were listening to people and then just trying to get them to do what we wanted to do. We really didn't, especially in those early years, we didn't have a clear vision. So the vision that we got happened over time because really people fell in love with, actually the photograph that's behind me, which is a photograph of the high line taken by Joel Sternfeld in 2000, which just shows an abandoned railroad with wildflowers growing on it. And that's what people sort of said, no, I think this is what we like. We like a version of what it's like right now. We just want to be able to go up there.
Daniel Stillman 26:00
You mentioned that, Joel. Joel, you talk about as the third co founder, and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that, because his photographs do communicate viscerally the joy of the beauty of the sort of. I mean, it's a very. What's the word? It's like, it's a very. It's like looking at a seashore. Yeah, but it's like, you know, a seashore in winter. It's like, it's kind of. It's kind of sadly obsolescent, but beautifully, beautifully, sadly obsolescent. There's a, there's a grandeur to it, and it captures that.
Robbie Hammond 26:35
It's interesting. The reason he was recommended to me is he had gotten a Rome prize and taken a series of photos of the roman aqueducts that are abandoned outside of Rome. So there's still these abandoned roman arches sort of in the middle of the countryside or in the middle of these sort of like, suburbs of Rome. And he had taken these photos and published it as a book. And it was very sort of melancholy kind of reminder of these remnants of a great sort of civilization. Juxtapos. Juxtaposition. Sort of like bad suburban houses and sort of weird abandoned farms. And so this guy, Ray Gaskell, who used to run the architecture nonprofit, who then became. He ran city planning, later suggested I contact this guy to photograph it, and I looked him up, literally, in the white pages back then, which, for those of you don't know, you used to be able to look up people's home phone numbers in the printed telephone directory that you had at your home.
Daniel Stillman 27:48
Sure. Unless somebody ripped it. All right. Yeah. Like the ones that were in public, somebody would always rip out one of those.
Robbie Hammond 27:53
Yeah. And, you know, it was, it didn't, it was a, you know, it didn't have the two one two on the number before because they were all, you know. And so, yeah, I called him up and he came up and he said, don't let anyone up here to photograph it for a year, and I'll give you something spectacular. And he gave us these images of what it looked like in all different seasons. And we published together. We published a book, photographs called walking the Highline. And that's what. And then Adam Gottnik, a New Yorker writer, wrote a, a New Yorker piece about, not about Josh and I starting the high line. We were mentioned, but the piece was really. I mean, people think it was about the high line now, but if you read about it, it's really about Joel photographing the high line.
Daniel Stillman 28:43
Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned that he refers to you as kind of like, kind of kooks.
Robbie Hammond 28:49
Yeah. I think he said we're like, and we didn't live on the Upper west side, but he said they're like old school Upper Westsiders, community do gooders. Come on, let's turn an old railroad into a park kind of guy.
Daniel Stillman 29:01
Yes. Well, so this is kind of a quote you open up with in your book, and I feel like I'd be remiss if we don't unpack this. We were two neighborhood nobodies with little money or experience. And in one of the talks of yours that I watched, there was you sharing this idea of the real legacy of the highline being the
Daniel Stillman 29:26
enthusiasm it's given to other nobodies with a dream, not to create other elevated parks or anything like that, but just that some. That we can dream something that is potentially better than anybody else can imagine and bring it to life if we apply ourselves to it.
Robbie Hammond 29:48
Yeah. That neighborhood nobody's was actually. That's how Diane, my first wonderland one time, introduced us at an event. For us, it was a highline event.
Daniel Stillman 30:01
Wow.
Robbie Hammond 30:02
She said, now I'd like to introduce two neighborhood nobodies, Joshua and David. Another time she introduced us is my good friends, which is a better start. Joshua and David. The co founder's name is Joshua David, but she. I just watched an amazing documentary about her. And her and her family became instrumental in actually our largest donors and really critical in helping us. But that's where I think. And Josh really deserves all the credit for that book, even the parts that have. It's written in both of our voices. He wrote my parts, so he wrote all the sections that have his name and my name next to him, but he knew my voice better than I did. Like, when I read it, I was like, oh, my God, this is exactly what I would have said if I said it. That's beautiful. So that's where he got that quote from, or that name neighborhood. And there is some truth to it. I mean, we didn't, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have any experience. We didn't have sort of even a vision for it. But, you know, on the other hand, we came from, like, wealthy middle class families. We both went to Ivy League schools. We had a lot of contacts. So we had friends of friends that were not neighborhood nobodies. That turned out to be really, really critical to making it happen. I mean, one of my roommates from college became speaker of the city council, Gifford Miller, who was really instrumental in having it happen. So there is some of that. But sometimes I get criticized. I remember I was on a panel with Malcolm Gladwell, and I said, you know, this is a very much of a bottom up project. And he said, if the high line is the bottom, then I want to be on the bottom.
Daniel Stillman 32:01
Fair. Fair, because.
Robbie Hammond 32:03
Yeah, so. But yes, it was two people that didn't have any background, didn't have any, you know, millions of dollars sitting there to build something with. And I think it's. I think there are a whole bunch of projects that have been inspired by the Highline, but I don't think these projects are so difficult to do. What the Highline has done is, I think, has made the crazy more credible. It's made the crazy not seem impossible. So what we do is we help speed along the three years it took to convince people this wasn't a crazy project. And so now mayors and city planners and real estate people and community people and donors, if you say, oh, it's like the high line, it automatically has more credibility. And so I think that's what we've done. Because if you look at these projects, they all, they're not using like, the highline design sense or a lot. You know, they're all sort of, each one of them could write their own book about their path, and each one is very different. But what's similar is a lot of us come from these sort of eclectic backgrounds. We don't necessarily come. Most of us don't come from park backgrounds or city planning backgrounds or a real estate background, but just have this sort of passion and enthusiasm that often has to be sustained for a long time.
Daniel Stillman 33:41
A long time.
Robbie Hammond 33:42
People think the high line took a long time, ten years from when we started to when we opened. And then even then, that was just the first phase. But some of these other projects, I know the Queen's way, that just got $100 million in funding. There were community people that were talking about that before we started the high line. So they've been at it for over 25 years.
Daniel Stillman 34:07
Yeah. And who was the guy? Was it Joel? Who.
Robbie Hammond 34:11
Well, there's Travis Terry, who's sort of the head of the Queen's way.
Daniel Stillman 34:15
No, no, I'm the community.
Robbie Hammond 34:17
There were two community people that were at it way before him.
Daniel Stillman 34:21
The guy who bought the. Who was going to buy the highline.
Robbie Hammond 34:24
Oh, yes. Not Joel. I'm just forgetting his name. But it'll come to.
Daniel Stillman 34:30
There's a picture of him by his trailer. I'm trying to find it in the book.
Robbie Hammond 34:34
No, yeah, he lived in a train car underneath the high line, an actual train car on train tracks. And he bought the high. I mean, then it was called the west side Improvement District. It was high line for $10 from CSX. His name is Peter Oblitz.
Daniel Stillman 34:53
Oblates.
Robbie Hammond 34:54
Yeah, he bought it in the eighties.
Daniel Stillman 34:56
He.
Robbie Hammond 34:56
He died, sadly, before. Before we started, so we never got to meet him. Yeah, he lived in a converted Pullman car. But, you know, he wanted it. His idea. He was a rail enthusiast, and he wanted to use it to haul whale waste out by rail, which I actually really smart, instead of having to take it out on trucks and ships. But it just didn't. A lot of the opposition that we faced was there. Even back then in the eighties, people wanted to tear it down.
Daniel Stillman 35:35
So one of the things that I'm. You talked about this big tent. In one of your talks about just save it and do something cool with it, is a very big tent. But at some point, you had to learn. I'm still going through your conversation. Superpowers. I'm thinking about. There's a slide you show where you need to communicate to Mike Bloomberg, this is what the real value or the financial potential is. And I think what's interesting, I had a design professor in design school who used to ask this question, how much did the Eiffel Tower cost? And the answer is, who the fuck cares now? But at the time, people were really in a twist about, this Eiffel Tower is costing. It's an eyesore. It's an arm and a leg. And now it's a city defining world symbol for liberty, egalitarian fraternity, and croissants. And it's the Eiffel Tower. And I think about the conversation around the highline where it's like, well, look, all these buildings will get three more feet.
Robbie Hammond 36:35
But, you know, it's hard because, I mean, you know, the Eiffel Tower was always going to be defining of Paris. The great example is the Sydney opera house that was wildly over budget, considered a failure because it took decades, and they fired the architect, never was allowed back, but now obviously defines the city. But those were on, like, prominent sites that everyone could see. The high line, you know, was in a neighborhood. There wasn't very many people in it. It was going to be a mile and a half, but it's only, you know, three stories high, seven acres. So seven acres is the size of, like, small parks that don't take a block. So it was really hard. I mean, we weren't trying to say, this is going to be our generation Central park. I mean, we were saying, this is a really interesting project. But we weren't. We didn't imagine that the city said, okay, how many people are going to go? We said, oh, like 300,000. And we just took that number because at the time, the Whitney was up on the Upper east side. It wasn't, you know, downtown then.
Daniel Stillman 37:41
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 37:42
And it used to get 300,000 visitors a year. That's how much the Guggenheim got. So we were like, okay, that's a good number. Those are city attractions, you know, so we'll get 300,000 visits a year. We opened, we got a million before COVID we had 8 million. I think it's going to be on track to do that again. So it doesn't, you know, it's hard in retrospect. And even the people that, you know, I love blaming Giuliani for. He signed a demolition order before he got office. I always thought he was bad, but, I mean, he always was bad. Now everyone just realizes it. But the two mayors before him, Dinkins and Koch, had also signed demolition agreements.
Daniel Stillman 38:24
Fair.
Robbie Hammond 38:26
It wasn't just the bad Republican. It was a lot of people looked at it and said, this thing just doesn't make any sense. Tear it down. The only rational and even, you know, I ended up doing a. Producing a movie on Jane Jacobs. And, you know, a lot of people brought. I'd actually not read her book when I started it, embarrassingly. Everyone always kept mentioning it, and finally I had to read it. But people used her as an example that she wouldn't have supported the highliness because it would take people off the street. It was three stories off. You already had an avenue that didn't have enough foot traffic. You know, she wasn't always such a parks fan for activating cities. That wasn't, you know, so there were a lot of people, not just like the Giuliani Republicans, but a lot of good civic oriented, park loving folk that didn't think the high line was a good idea or whatever happened, or much less become a project that is one of the city's main attractions. It is, but a very large attraction.
Daniel Stillman 39:40
Oh, huge. And so it's funny, and I think we don't have a ton of time left, so I want to transition to. There's this quote, and it's kind of wonderful, but also heartbreaking. Somebody said to you, when the Highland was built was like, congratulations. You never have to do anything again, which is like, something I think everyone kind of wishes for. But also, like, you're clearly doing things now, and I want to talk about what you're doing now because you're doing cool things still. But, like, that also is kind of an intense thing to graduate from.
Robbie Hammond 40:14
Yeah, I remember this guy named James La Force. He's a pr guy that helped us. I still in touch with him. Yeah, he sent me that, and I printed it out because, like, if you go back to that anxiety and depression, I had this intense, like, sort of self doubt and self criticism, you know, that was crippling. But obviously, I was able to do a lot of stuff, but I couldn't sleep. I would just be, you know, and so it was interesting that, you know, even when the highline opened and somebody sent me that email, I didn't. I couldn't believe that at all. And now I really do. I mean, it's really. I have to say, it is great being one of the co founders of the Highline. Like, it's just. It's wonderful. You overhear people talking about it, you know, and it's just really fun to be. To be able to say, oh, I helped start the high line. You know, it's really. And sometimes people think, because I sometimes talk about the highline's failures, that I'm not proud of it or that I would do it and if I could do it all again differently. But, you know, it's all hindsight. I think it's more not what we should have done differently, but what other people can learn from the highlight.
Daniel Stillman 41:40
So I think it's. It is a really beautiful thing to be able to say. Like, the high line is a symbol for taking something that is better than anyone can imagine and bring it into life.
Robbie Hammond 41:54
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 41:55
And I'm curious, when you think about all the deltas, like, all the ways you would have done it differently, how do you apply that to what you're currently working on? Because I know very little about the third project.
Robbie Hammond 42:05
Yeah. So I'm working. I'd wanted to leave the highline for a while, but I couldn't. Something Covid happened, and I couldn't find anything else that was as interesting for me that would have this kind of sort of impact that was, I didn't want to just do a real estate project or. I like things that are complicated and unusual. And then I heard about this company in. In Europe that built huge scale bathing facilities that are sort of like modern day roman baths or wellness, Disney Worlds. And I just loved it because it was sort of a combination of an indoor botanical garden, pools, saunas, all put together in a different way, but at scale. And they can serve up to 2 million people a year. And the average entry price in Europe is $25. So very accessible. So I just got really. But we don't have anything like that in the US. And when you talk about it here, people either don't understand it, they think it's crazy, or, wow, that's too big. You'll never. It's hard to build something that's half a million square feet in the middle of a busy city.
Daniel Stillman 43:11
Yes.
Robbie Hammond 43:12
And so it had a lot of things like my dad always emails me, says, you know, can you, can you tell me two sentences that describes what you're doing? And I'm like, no, dad, I can't. It's just like in the high line. When I started the high line, I couldn't give you two sentences that explained it, you know, and that's what really interested me at this. And it's a long process. The other thing is, this is, my friends keep thinking, because now there are all these bathing facilities opening in Manhattan. They think they're my facilities.
Daniel Stillman 43:42
There's quite a resurgence of spa culture.
Robbie Hammond 43:45
No, it's this.
Daniel Stillman 43:46
I just went to an event coming, I promise.
Robbie Hammond 43:48
This tidal wave of bathing, it's really exciting.
Daniel Stillman 43:51
By the way, though. It is a return to. I mean, in the lower east side of when my people came, it's like there were bath houses. The 10th street bath is no great.
Robbie Hammond 44:02
Shakes these days, but huge public bathing facilities.
Daniel Stillman 44:05
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 44:06
You know, during the first half of the century, and then sort of segregation or desegregation. I mean, there are a whole bunch of reasons that they fell apart. I mean, yeah, there were literally dozens and dozens of bathhouses at the turn of the century. And then. So it's coming back, but it's going to take us. These facilities are huge. They're, you know, Yankee stadium sized facility. So it'll probably be four years, the soonest, that we can open one. But so that's what I'm doing now.
Daniel Stillman 44:38
I don't think I'd actually wrap my head around when you say Yankee stadium size facility. That is actually kind of familiar. Breathtaking.
Robbie Hammond 44:44
Twelve acres. And they're just very complex. They're really expensive. I mean, they're for profit. They're profitable because we can get so many people through them. They're social experiences. It's not a spy. You don't go underground and pretend you don't see anyone. It's only 5% of people come alone. So it's really. And that's what's the most interesting to me, is there all these health benefits of bathing. That's one of the resurgence of the hot cold therapy. But to me, the biggest health benefits are just the social aspects. Thousands of people together in their bathing suit.
Daniel Stillman 45:22
Well, and it's integral to, like, you know, korean culture.
Robbie Hammond 45:26
All the big culture has these things that have been around for centuries.
Daniel Stillman 45:33
Centuries.
Robbie Hammond 45:34
You know, it's really. I mean, we had a native american tradition, and we really did. Look, if you look back, some, you know, some of the early immigrant populations had huge bathing cultures, and we built giant public pools for a while. You know, that was an important part of city infrastructure. And so now the way I like to think about this is this is like, you know, wellness infrastructure.
Daniel Stillman 45:58
The city should have with this, a project like this, which is pretty grand, but it's also for profit versus, like, the friends of the high line had this sound that was very open door and very public good. How are you? You think about all the things you've learned about you as a change agent, bringing it into this, which is a pretty big endeavor as well.
Robbie Hammond 46:20
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 46:21
What are you bringing into this project in terms of how you're thinking about how you show up as a coalition builder and an organizer and an actualizer of crazy dreams into reality?
Robbie Hammond 46:35
Yeah, I mean, part of it is just listening to a lot of people, because other people have been doing this for a lot longer. One, this company that I joined has been doing this for 20 years. So they have all of this expertise that they've learned over time. And then there are all these people in the US, some, like Mikhail Alon, who wrote sweat, he just. There's a documentary out called Perfect Sweat that he did. He wrote this book, sweat, in the seventies. He's been doing this for decades. So there's people that had been carrying that flame here in the states, and then there are all these new young people, I mean, that are decades younger than me, that are opening all of these bathing bath houses. And so there really is this new culture of bathing that is happening in North America. And it's one of the things I really want to do is to try to do a gathering of these people. Sort of like we started the Highland network. This isn't. I'm not a leader in this field by any means of, but I like the idea of convening a whole bunch of these people that are starting these kind of projects together just to talk about what's happening and really think about how do we want to shape it, what do we want this movement to be like in ten years? Because I guarantee you it's going to look very different, even in just five years. I mean, there's five bathing facilities within five blocks in Flatiron that have all opened in one year and more coming. And they're all different. Like, they're all different price points. They're all different. You know, they're not. People think, oh, it's. They're all going to drive each other out of business. I don't think so. I think you're going to see more of them.
Daniel Stillman 48:16
It's fascinating to me because I went to. I went to another ship event recently.
Robbie Hammond 48:21
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 48:21
And I'd never been through a, you know, an organized spa experience. You know, like a guided meditation spa. It's not a spa.
Robbie Hammond 48:31
It's not a spa.
Daniel Stillman 48:32
Well, I mean, it was in a sauna.
Robbie Hammond 48:34
I know, but they don't give you. They're very robbie bent. And the other guys that started are very smart. They hosted my 55th birthday a few weeks ago there before they opened, and I got to have 100 friends in a sauna. The sauna can fit 100 people when it's packed in. I think normally they only let them.
Daniel Stillman 48:52
Fit 60, but, yeah, I think I went, yeah, it's a tight fit for 100.
Robbie Hammond 48:58
It was tight, but they were friends, so they. He doesn't give out slippers or robes because he doesn't want it to feel like a spa.
Daniel Stillman 49:08
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 49:08
Because the spa really is meant, is usually you don't want to be around other people in a spa. You know, you pretty. If you're sitting next to someone in the reception waiting for you massage, you pretend you don't see them. No one's talking, it's whispering. Whereas this, my favorite event, you know, on Fridays, they're going to have the social one where people just talk. I first went to it in Toronto, and I've now visited hundreds of bathing facilities all over the world now. And othership remains one of my favorites. Just because it's so social. It's just so.
Daniel Stillman 49:40
It's very interesting question, because, you know, if you go to spy at eight, which is one of my favorite old school spas, if you go on a Friday, which is when I like to go and just spend the whole day, the regulars talk to each other about spas or about other. It's like we chit chat, but very quietly.
Robbie Hammond 49:57
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 49:59
And it's.
Robbie Hammond 50:00
And that's why there's. It's not. I still love the russian baths. It's totally different. And bathhouse, totally different.
Daniel Stillman 50:08
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 50:08
Like, my husband and I go on double dates at Bathhouse. It's great. I just went to another one called Ilani that only fits four people. It's on the second floor of a building on 28th street. It's called a bathhouse speakeasy because it's like, behind a door on the second floor, and you have to, like, find it. And it's only four people. And then they have a little bar that serves, like, non alcoholic wellness drinks. They're all really. They give you a different experience, and I think it makes you want to go to more of them and experience different, and then go to the one in your neighborhood and go to the old one and go to the new, you know, and at these new ones, people are. It's not old. I am an old person. Why? I'm older, but it's 20 years. It's not 40, fifties and sixties. I mean, there are older people there, but, I mean, I didn't feel out of place at all. But it's definitely like a new generation looking for in real life experience experiences, you know, that are healthy.
Daniel Stillman 51:20
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 51:21
And fun. And these things are fun. You know, people talk about the health benefits, which is true, but I think people go because they're fun. And that's why I don't think it's a fad, because they're just fun.
Daniel Stillman 51:33
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 51:33
And so it's. And healthy.
Daniel Stillman 51:36
Well, social wellness is an aspect of it, which exactly. Is worth talking about. But good God, we're almost against time. What haven't I asked you that I should ask you. What haven't we talked about that we should talk about?
Robbie Hammond 51:50
I've enjoyed this. It's been nice thinking about this as this anniversary.
Daniel Stillman 51:56
I mean, we can just have a whole other hour talking about spa culture comes upon.
Robbie Hammond 52:00
I know. No, but that's why I'd urge you to think about. I mean, they are spas, but spas have this also are very. Tend to be more exclusive and are about pampering. And these things are, you know, some of them, there are facilities that are more expensive. There's remedy place, you know, which has hot and cold therapy, and it's more expensive. More like a fancy club. It's wonderful. It's very, you know, it's great to go there and be pampered, but most of these things, it's just social and so. And they're able to get the price down. Because they can fit more people and so it doesn't require that much real estate. So, no, I've loved, this is really. This has been fun for me. It makes me want to send an email to that guy, James Laforce, who sent me that email 15 years ago.
Daniel Stillman 52:53
That's amazing. That's amazing. If you had to give a title to this conversation, what would the title you'd give to this conversation? Probably.
Robbie Hammond 53:03
I mean, I don't know. It's a meandering, non linear, you know, it's a nonlinear conversation about a linear way. There's no centering the high line. If you notice, there's very few curves on the high. Because the rails.
Daniel Stillman 53:18
Yeah.
Robbie Hammond 53:18
Rail lines didn't have, you know, there's just about how fast, how long can you go in a straight line? Because the locomotive can go faster in a straight line.
Daniel Stillman 53:25
Yes.
Robbie Hammond 53:25
And so the design team, James Corner, field operations, Dillard's, Cavill, Rentro, really took that. And so there's very. Sometimes they have to move it, but they do it with, like, a lot of straight lines. But this conversation was a lot about different detours.
Daniel Stillman 53:43
Yeah. Hopefully we didn't go off the rails too much. Well, in that case, I'll call scene and thank you for your time and just make sure that everything felt good and included.
Robbie Hammond 53:57
It was really fun.
Daniel Stillman 53:59
Wonderful.
Robbie Hammond 54:00
I'm leaving in a better mood than when I started. Thank you.
Daniel Stillman 54:04
That's wonderful. Enjoyed it.