More than a dozen artists are using the old High Line rail line as a "departure point" for their work. As NY1's Stephanie Simon explain, some go with high-tech takes, while others take more traditional routes.

It's not so much a stairway to heaven above the Meatpacking District, but a rail line.

“Though most people don't realize it, over the last 25 years since the last trains ran on it, all of these weeds have taken root up there and created this wild pastoral landscape and grasslands, which most people haven't seen, but eventually they'll be able to when it’s remade,” says curator Peter Heeley.

Heeley is talking about the High Line, the 22-block long defunct railway in the sky that is set to be re-developed into public park space.

The High Line runs from Washington Street and Gansevoort up to 34th Street between Ninth and Eleventh avenues.

The public art organization Creative Time has taken over an abandoned warehouse right under the elevated tracks for a new art exhibition that explores the High Line, metaphorically.

“We were really lucky the city allowed us to use this building that happens to be where the High Line ends to stage an exhibit that deals with all these themes about how we imagine inaccessible places, and more generally the way in which re-mystify the world we already know,” says Heeley.

The exhibit is called “Plain of Heaven,” and from inside the warehouse you can catch a short glimpse of the actual "Plain of Heaven" from its balcony.

Inside the warehouse you cane see works by 14 artists. A new work by Sol Lewitt uses the room's existing architecture. In a new video work by Song Dong, fire creates instead of destroys. There are also audio installations and performance art.

Walking through this abandoned warehouse with the meat hooks still hanging from the ceilings and the scent of the old smoke rooms, you're reminded of what the original purpose of the High Line was - to ship meat.

But interestingly enough this warehouse is also set to be redeveloped. This building may soon make way for the new home of the Dia Art Foundation.

The redevelopment of the High Line is scheduled to begin by the end of this year, and open to the public by 2007.

“The Plain of Heaven”
Now - November 20
Admission: Free

Creative Time
820 Washington Street
Meatpacking District
www.creativetime.org

- Stephanie Simon