High Line at Night

We visited the High Line last night - not the way I hoped to see it for the first time, but it was a revelation none-the-less. Crowds of strollers, visitors in twos and threes, groups, loungers. The lighting even made it possible to enjoy some of Piet Oudolf's low plantings. But the big surprise was the mass plantings of Prairie Dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis), which invisibly perfumed the air with a unique fragrance for several hundred feet - like a silent message in the dark. Like an unexpected gift.