Tenth Avenue Square & Sunken Overlook: Street Traffic as Theater

Why is it significant?

Take a seat on the stepped wooden benches of the Tenth Avenue Square and look through the massive glass picture window directly down into the roaring avenue beneath your feet.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Take a seat on the stepped wooden benches of the Tenth Avenue Square and look through the massive glass picture window directly down into the roaring avenue beneath your feet. This sunken wooden amphitheater at Seventeenth Street is one of the most brilliant urban design interventions in the entire park.

What was this section of the viaduct during its freight days? In the nineteen thirties, massive steam locomotives carrying refrigerated boxcars roared across this wide span. When the park was designed in the two thousands, architects Diller Scofidio and Renfro decided to peel away the steel deck and cut a sunken opening, transforming the ordinary chaos of yellow taxis and delivery vans below into a mesmerizing, live theatrical performance.

Look around at the steel-framed canopy overhead: it preserves the rugged industrial silhouette of the original bridge trusses. Across the street stands the undulating glass facade of Frank Gehry's IAC Building, resembling white sailing ships billowing in the wind, alongside Jean Nouvel's fractured prism tower with hundreds of tilted glass panes reflecting the evening sunset.

Sit here for a few minutes in silence: visitors from around the world gather on these amphitheater steps not to look at paintings, but to watch the hypnotic choreography of New York City traffic flowing endlessly into the north.