It's difficult not to fall in love with the High Line, whether one uses its plant-covered elevated walkways to forge a calming route to work, or if one strips down to tan on its lawn chairs on lazy Sunday afternoons (in warmer seasons, of course). Come this spring, there will be almost one and a half additional miles of reclaimed parkland to enjoy when the $67 million second section of the High Line — stretching from 20th Street to 30th Street, slightly west of 10th Avenue — opens to the public, with a 4,900-square-foot lawn and views of the Hudson River.

The second of the elevated park's three sections is still under construction, leaving fans to wait with bated breath to experience the wilds of its northern end, trolling for updates to the High Line blog. (The third and final section will stretch west from 30th Street toward the river before looping north to 34th Street.) In the meantime, however, Corey Kilgannon wrote a tantalizing piece for the New York Times, offering a sneak peak at what's in store.

Going on a preview tour of the second section, which doubles the size of the High Line along Manhattan's West Side, the reporter describes a steel walkway that hovers eight feet above lush vegetation, sleek concrete-plank pathways, and benches whose "peel-up" structure mimics the shape of the northern stretch of former elevated railroad they inhabit. It is the "Woodland Flyover" section, though, that sounds most thrilling — between 22nd and 23rd stretches a vast lawn, and at 26th Street there will be "a fertile valley." At 30th Street, there will soon be a stretch of grating allowing visitors to stare directly downward to the street below.

"It feels like a Venetian canal, compared to the southern part," the city's parks commissioner Adrian Benepe told the Times. "Like you're walking through the set of 'Rear Window.'" In contrast to the $86 million first section, running from Gansevoort to 20th Street and featuring views of posh Meatpacking District boutiques and starchitect buildings, much of section two looks out on run-down, graffiti-covered buildings. This stretch of the former railway line is, according to High Line planning official Peter Mullan, "a piece of lost New York that still exists."