The “Lowline” (a nod to the “Highline” park built atop an old railway path on the city’s West Side) will use a burgeoning solar technology to reflect sunlight underground to grow trees and plants year-round creating a new kind of urban green space in a neighborhood that desperately needs it it.
But major urban change in American cities doesn’t happen overnight. There are government agencies to wrangle with, community interests to parse, design challenges to overcome, technologies to be invented. And that’s not even factoring the eight-figure price tag.
An artist’s rendering of the Lowline park.
For now, Barasch is on the eve of his latest major milestone: the opening of the “Lowline Lab,” a proof-of-concept mini-version of the park blocks away from its intended site to help persuade funders and the city government that the Lowline team, in fact, knows what they are doing. The Lab is the culmination of years of work, fundraising, marketing, and not-so-glamorous grass- roots community building.
The Lowline is unique not only because of the park itself, but because instant gratification is all around us, and such a long-term journey with no promised outcome is becoming path less trodden. So how does Barasch stay focused running a marathon when everyone else seems to be running a sprint? We asked him.
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You’re not an expert in city government, parks, or solar technology. How did you overcome thinking: “What do I think I’m doing? I don’t know any of this stuff!” 
To do big things, it’s important to make big bets and be willing to jump in entirely. You also need a slightly arrogant belief that it is possible to learn things as you go along. I was hired at Google [in 2006] when, to be completely honest, I barely understood Google’s business model. I remember the guy who interviewed me said, “I place bets on people not on resumes. Your energy and enthusiasm is what we need for our growing team and we’re willing to make a bet on you.”
That approach is profound to me. For the Lowline, I may not have had the knowledge in government or park design, but I knew people that did, and could build my team and board of directors accordingly. I just look for energy and enthusiasm; things that you can’t learn. But you can learn any job along the way if you’re committed and inspired and excited. That’s why I thought it was okay to jump into something where I didn’t have all the experience and the knowledge.
Dan Barasch at the site of the Lowline Lab, the group’s proof-of-concept which opened this month.
Energy and enthusiasm are needed for any job, but this is a 10-year project at its most optimistic. How do you plan to maintain that enthusiasm the entire time? 
It’s a challenge, I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Many of the steps we take feel anti-climatic because even when we reach a success, we are still very aware of how far away we are from our ultimate goal. Even incremental wins and success that are colossal triumphs can quickly seem like just another step.
I don’t have a good answer for internal reserve, but setting up good external support and a network is crucial. If anyone ever feels isolated in a long-term journey, it’s easy to have weeks and months go by without any good news, and you won’t feel like you’re moving the ball down the field. Those are the times it is most important to have people around you that can reorient you, to remind you to keep going, and to offer to help.
Do you think it’s the feeling of isolation that causes depression in entrepreneurs? 
Having a network of people around you to protect you from those lows is absolutely essential. The strongest person in the world would still need someone to whip them back into shape when they feel sorry for themselves.
How do you even plan something as bold as building a brand new kind of city park? 
I’m naturally a chaotic and disorganized person. I’ve been using this nerdy system called “Objectives and Key Results” or “OKR.” Basically, you focus on the big, high-level objectives and work backwards to set goals each quarter. Then, you measure those objectives. You use that as a tool to communicate openly and transparently to your team what you’re actually doing and how you’re spending your time.
Everyone from the most junior to the most senior person can see and return to those any time. For me, it splits this job into bite-sized chunks. It lets me take it three months at a time and publish the results to the board or directors for feedback.
And with all the chaotic elements of local community, government, technology, and design, how often do those plans change?
I’m not good at a lot of stuff. But one thing I am good at is being incredibly flexible. I really love changing things on the turn of a dime. I feel way less comfortable with something written in stone that I can’t change. We’ve had to roll with some pretty substantial changes like the turnover of mayoral administrations from Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014. It probably set us back and we lost traction in a critical moment. But that’s the stuff that I love. I love setting up a war room that deals with stuff that constantly changes and adjusting to that new reality. I thrive way more in that environment than setting some kind of Maoist ten-year plan.
A demonstration of the solar technology that redistributes sunlight to help plants grow underground.
What’s your advice for someone who struggles dealing with that kind of change? 
My strong belief is that people shouldn’t try to change their personality. If people are risk averse or prefer a structure, those are incredible strengths when channeled the right way with the right team. I don’t think anyone needs to change their thinking or temperament, but just be self-aware of where you fit on that spectrum. If you’re not that comfortable with adaptability, have someone around you who is. If you don’t like planning, have someone around you who does. Otherwise, you can get caught up in the reasons why something can’t happen, and then you’ll never do anything.
When I look at failures or frustrations in my life, it is partially a function of not knowing myself and not knowing who I was. I think that self-exploration needs to happen early in someone’s career. Can you tolerate a boss? Do you need to be the boss? Do you deal well with instructions? Do you want to be left alone? This is why you should go through jobs a little bit quicker when you’re younger and when you get older, you figure out where you’re supposed to be and where you’d like to spend your time. It’s a function of knowing who you are and your strengths and weaknesses so others can do the stuff you cant or don’t want to do.
From Kickstarter to private galas, you’ve done a lot of fundraising. What is it like to be constantly convincing people that you have a good idea? 
It means you need to constantly come back to what you care about. Why you? Why is this important? What’s the end result of this? Where does the money go? This is a blessing in disguise as it keeps you focused. It’s hard to get off-mission when you’re explaining it every day to new people. But without a doubt, fundraising is like selling, and a good salesperson never makes a sale feel like “sales.” Selling should feel like a friend letting another friend on an amazing secret that will make their life better.
The best salesperson I ever knew was at Google. Everyone trusted her instincts and intelligence, but she was also a fun person to be around and people wanted to trust her. You really got the sense she was telling you something that was not only coming from the heart, but was going to improve your life.
But, let’s be real. This is sounding more poetic than it really is, because in reality she was selling ads on the Internet. But that’s the essence of being persuasive. It’s about emotional connection and that personal sense of trust. If you come across or feel like your “selling,” you’re doing it wrong and it’s probably not going to work.
How do you feel when you see your peers reaching any success milestones while you’re focusing on something more long-term? 
I really don’t know what my peers are doing [laughs]. For sure, it is satisfying to work on something that is generating revenue or has real, immediate impact. It’s much more challenging to focus on a project like ours: something long-term with completely unclear rewards and a lot of uncertainty if it will even happen.
If I compare it to my peers working in digital or selling apps, of course it seems like this is a slow-moving dinosaur. But comparing this project to other examples of civic innovation, we’re right on par. This particular project is bigger than this one site [in New York City] and technology. The Lowline has incredible potential to scale and inspire.
I hope that it is successful. But even if it is not, I’ll go to bed knowing we spent a lot of years working on something that people felt really passionate about, something that changed the way people look at this city I love. That’s worth more than anything.
Dan Barasch’s TEDxNYC talk.
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To contribute to the Lowline project, visit lowline.org.
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