Chelsea residents and High Line neighbors Joshua David and Robert Hammond founded Friends of The High Line in 1999 with the goal of restoring the elevated, dilapidated train tracks to public use and turning the decaying infrastructure into an urban oasis for the community. Despite a mayor who tried to destroy the High Line (Guiliani), and a complete lack of interest at first from politicians and city officials, Friends of the High Line managed to gradually convince the community and ultimately the powers-that-be that this historic structure needed to be saved and turned into a park, and the first section of the restored park opened in 2009.