Exactly ten years ago, summertime in every city was lit up for those listening by a warm weather anthem that wasn’t a hip hop song or a club banger. The distinct bossa nova kick and the breezy female vocal of Nicola Conte’s ‘Bossa Per Due’ is ever familiar, even if his name isn’t. The producer, DJ, snappy dresser, and purveyor of all sounds Italian doesn’t play out a ton, but he’s coming to the Highline Ballroom. He’ll be on guitar, accompanied by a hand picked jazz ensemble for this one-off show. I’m in Rome right now, so I don’t know how the weather is back in New York, but I promise it’ll be warm and clear while he’s there!

It’s a nice day for an elevated stroll. Open today is the first section of High Line, a park built on out of commission elevated rail that JoshSpear.com has been following since the earliest stages its conception. Running from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 20thth Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues. Upon completion it will stretch all the way out to 34th, making it a mile and a half long. The design by James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro will include some interesting seating, lighting, and other fixtures. Details of the design are on the High Line website, along with a schedule of events including the benefit going on there on June 15th. Getting a table will help fund the maintennance and overall upkeep of this ridiculously awesome urban park. It’s just $15k per table, who is in with me?

Smiles are sure to abound for North American audiences of Playing for Change as the musical extravaganza goes on tour this week. The multimedia, artist-driven effort is working to promote peace and music education through collaboration and live performances of World music. San Franciscans can take in the tunes, including a rather irresistible rendition of “Stand By Me” at Slim’s today. Other upcoming shows include Seattle’s Showbox and New York’s High Line Ballroom. Should you miss the opportunity to see Grandpa Elliott, Mohammed Alidu, Jason Tamba of Afro Fiesta, and their counterparts performing together live for the first time, the film looks to be a promising second best (after showing at Tribeca, it won best song at the Roxbury Film Festival — no surprise there).

Amazing Architect Elizabeth Diller had a fantastic presentation this afternoon. She spoke about two projects, one of which readers will be quite familiar with: The High Line, something I’ve written about a few times. What I didn’t know about was the number of different eco-systems that existed there naturally because of all the varying environments throughout the length of the line from things like tall buildings, shadows, sun, etc– She called it agri-tecture. Diller also took us through the Blur Building, an awesome building built for the Swiss Expo in 2002, it’s best described as an architecture of atmosphere. Water is pumped from the lake it’s set on, filtered and shot into the atmosphere around it as mist through 31,500 high-pressure mist nozzles. Inspiring!

I first blogged about The High Line project back in July of last year, and until now had heard very little about it. On April 10th the transformation of The High line begins– the city will celebrate the beginning of construction (after 20 years of legal disputes) with a free party on Little West 12th Street. No word on timing of the overhaul, how long it will take, etc–but soon it will become a beautiful public park designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Very exciting, I can’t wait to see it completed. Via Treehugger

The High Line looms between Gansevoort Street, around Little West 12th, and stretches all the way to 30th street. It’s an elevated rail structure built in the early 1930’s as part of the West Side Improvement project, one of NYC’s largest investments in transportation infrastructure, ever. The structure stretches nearly 1.5 miles, and has been abandoned since the last trains ran their course on it in the 1980. Now the stretch of railway has been colonized by grass, weeds, and general greenery, looming above the streets, almost forgotten, until now. In ‘99 a group of neighborhood residents founded “Friend of The High Line“, with a mission to convert the structure into some type of elevated open space– and this past fall, the State of New York and the CSX transportation company that owns the structure finally declared their support. So far, 50+ million dollars has been committed toward the project. The Friends of The High Line website has tons of great pictures of the structure as it stands now, as well as preliminary designs from the architectural firm Diller Scofidiio and Renfro. I see this as an incredibly positive move for NYC, and I forecast it to be a big and popular event when it does finally open!