Want to see the High Line for yourself? A lottery system is being used to give out tickets to one of several free tours scheduled for next week; your chance to throw you name into the hat ends at 4PM today. [High Line Lottery via NewYorkology]

Parks commish Adrian Benepe and city planning czar Amanda Burden unveiled the final design for the High Line this morning, the park that's being constructed atop 22 blocks worth of abandoned rail lines on the West Side. Now we know where we'll spend the occasional afternoon. In 2026. [NYT]

If you've been hearing a lot of David Bowie lately (and not just because your roommate is a big Aladdin Sane fan) you might have noticed his polished - presidential even - tone. He's shown himself to be a masterful organizer: his High line Festival, which kicked off yesterday, is THE festival of the year. He's proven himself an adept diplomat, talking his way out of a feud with a gruff Bobby DeNiro and negotiating through the tangle of neighborhood activists eager to protect the High Line. And now his populist streak is on full display. As the Observer reports, Bowie is opening up a burlesque house at former mafia hangout Little Charlie's Clam House. Like any good leader, Bowie first wooed the cultural aristocracy with screenings of underexposed Latin American films and is now making his appeal to the masses through a liberal display of tits and fishnets. Has the moment finally arrived? Is Bowie making his move? Is it time, that is, to turn and face the strange? —Josh

At the High Line groundbreaking(ish) ceremony yesterday, Kevin Bacon and Ed Norton whip it, whip it real good.

So Robert Hammond's lobbying has paid off. Hammond, an occasional dotcommer and artist, is co-founder of Friends of the High Line, a group lobbying for the elevated railway on the west side to be turned into an urban park. Friends of the High Line, which holds The Bloomberg administration this week adopted the scheme, backing the High Line's designation as a trail, which would stop its demolition. Gifford Miller, the City Council speaker, is a major supporter. Which is only fair, given the enthusiasm with which Hammond's been fundraising for the ambitious young Democrat. The objective: a New York version of the promenade plantee along the old line to Bastille in Paris. It's warms the cockles to see, applied to urban improvement, a bit of old-fashioned political arm-twisting.
On West Side, Rail Plan Is Up and Walking [New York Times]
Friends of the High Line