Yesterday was a merry one for those who normally go goo-goo for gadgets – and high-concept subterranean public parks.
During Apple’s unveiling of the latest iPad –simply referred to as “The New iPad”– the tech giant demonstrated the device’s new “Retina Display” (with 2048 x 1536 resolution) by showing a Fastcodesign.com article about the LowLine, the underground park devised by architectural/engineering wunderkinds James Ramsey and Dan Barasch.
The article appears to be on iPad’s Flipboard app, and the fact it made to arguably the year’s biggest gadget press conference was a pleasant surprise to LowLine (really called Delancey Underground) co-developer James Ramsey.
“They pulled it up on the screen and I was like ‘oh shit, that’s us!'” Mr. Ramsey told The Commercial Observer.
The iPad demo was the latest in a stream of good news for Mssrs. Ramsey and Barasch. The Delancey Underground project, which aims to transform an unused trolley terminal located beneath Delancey Street into a “extraordinary subterranean public park”, has recently raised $129,000 on Kickstarter for the first phase of the project.
The funds will help the duo continue their political and community outreach, build a full-scale demo of the LowLine concept in an abandoned warehouse space on the southeast corner of Essex and Delancey, and commission all the necessary real estate and engineering studies needed to eventually hand in a full proposal to the MTA.
“Kickstarter is really going to fund all of these things,” said Mr. Ramsey.
The LowLine mock-up is slated for the month of September.
The New iPad, meanwhile, is available for pre-order at a starting price of $499.
Staff writer Daniel Edward Rosen can be reached at drosen@observer.com and can be found on Twitter at @dedwardro