DOUGLAS CRIMP ON ALVIN BALTROP

IN DECEMBER 1973, a highway repair truck laden with asphalt crashed through the elevated West Side Highway between Little West Twelfth and Gansevoort Streets, closing forever the section of highway south of the collapse. Fifteen years elapsed before the structure was fully dismantled, and in the meantime it stood as a ghostly barrier between "civilized" Manhattan and the Hudson River. For those willing to cross underneath it, the abandoned and dilapidated industrial piers on the other side presented extraordinary opportunities for experimentation and mischief. Most famously, in 1975 Gordon Matta-Clark transformed Pier 52, at the foot of Gansevoort Street, into his "indoor park" Day's End. …