In the early 20th century, 10th Avenue in Manhattan earned the grim nickname 'Death Avenue' due to hundreds of fatal collisions between street-level freight trains and pedestrians. To eliminate this public danger without disrupting commerce, the city launched the West Side Improvement Project in 1929 to elevate 13 miles of track. However, rather than weaving the rail line around private property, engineers executed an audacious plan: they routed the steel viaduct directly through the structural frames of major industrial buildings.
Factories like the Nabisco bakery (now Chelsea Market) and Bell Telephone Laboratories (now the Westbeth Artists Community) were retrofitted or custom-designed so that heavy steel rail columns passed straight through their lower floors. This architectural integration allowed entire freight trains to pull inside warehouses to load and unload cargo on upper-level interior platforms. Indoor unloading protected goods from harsh weather, eliminated street congestion, and created an ultra-efficient assembly line ecosystem where raw materials arrived directly on the factory floor.
The integrated support columns were reinforced with heavy steel to handle the vibrations of fully loaded diesel locomotives. Today, as visitors stroll the High Line park, they pass through covered building portals that once served as busy, indoor industrial train depots.