NEW YORK—City officials and the nonprofit organization Friends of the High Line presented final designs for the first and second phases of the High Line park at a news conference in Chelsea yesterday, the New York Times reports. The designs reveal in greater detail important elements of the park's first two phases, including an art installation space where the park cuts through Chelsea Market and a bi-level sun deck between 14th and 15th Streets, which will offer views of the Hudson River.

The $170 million High Line, modeled loosely on the Promenade Plantée in Paris, is being built on a 1.45-mile-long elevated freight-rail structure that runs 22 blocks — from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street — up the West Side of Manhattan, near the Hudson River. The 30-to-60-feet-wide, 18-to-30-feet-above-ground rail structure was originally built in 1929–34, when the West Side was a freight transportation hub. Landscape architectural firm Field Operations, along with architects from Diller Scofidio + Renfro, won a 2004 competition to design the High Line, and park ground was broken in April 2006.

At the conference yesterday, officials said that the first phase of the park, running from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, should be completed by the end of the year, and the second phase, from 20th Street to 30th Street, is expected to be done by 2009. The third and final part, which wraps around the rail yards north of 30th Street and 12th Avenue, is still in the planning stages.

The Friends of the High Line will eventually manage and operate the park in conjunction with the New York City parks department. Robert Hammond, co-founder of the group, said that the park's grand opening has not been officially scheduled, but will most likely take place in December or January. In response to questions about whether winter is the best time to open a new park, he replied that the timing would let the city ease into use of the space. "One of my concerns is it being loved to death in the first few weeks. It's a good problem to have, but it's something we've been thinking a lot about."