The first two phases of the High Line make their way through relatively low-rise sections of Manhattan. But the third phase, which opened to the public this weekend, wraps around the Hudson Yards site, for which 16 skyscrapers, one of them taller than the Empire State Building, are planned.

For a while, the High Line’s designers thought perhaps they had to “go bigger” this time around, to respond to the scale of the new construction, says Peter Mullan, an architect who has worked for Friends of the High Line since 2004 and is currently its executive vice president. But then the team, led by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, decided to let the High Line be the High Line, extending many aspects of the first two phases to the third, officially titled The High Line at the Rail Yards. Indeed, one planned (and even publicized) feature of Phase 3, an oval amphitheater enclosed by maple and tupelo trees at the corner of 30th Street and 10th Avenue, was dropped because, Mullan says, it was considered “too aggressive a gesture.”