Lowline, Delancey Street Underground, Essex Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

The Lowline, formally known as the Delancey Underground, is a proposal for the world's first underground park in the New York City borough of Manhattan that would be located under the eastbound roadway of Delancey Street on the Lower East Side, adjacent to the Essex Street station (J M Z trains). Co-founders James Ramsey and Dan Barasch have suggested natural light would be directed below ground using fiber optics—described in the proposed plan as "remote skylights"—to provide an area in which trees and grass could be grown beneath the city streets. Light collectors would be placed at ground level, with suggested locations, including the median on Delancey Street. Artificial lighting would be used to supplement the redirect sunlight, and at night and when the sun is obscured by clouds. The area, with ceilings 20 feet (6.1 m) high, extends three blocks east from Essex Street to Clinton Street and was used until 1948 as a station and balloon loop for streetcars crossing the Williamsburg Bridge to and from Brooklyn. R. Boykin Curry IV is the third urban entrepreneur behind the proposal.
History
The large trolley terminal that is the site has sat unused for 60 years. The project was first proposed in 2011 and has quickly generated widespread media attention.