Park, and included construction of the West Side Elevated Highway. The plans also included the construction of the St. John's Freight Terminal at Spring Street, which was completed in 1936 and replaced the street-level St. John's Park Terminal in present-day Tribeca. The West Side Improvement cost more than $150 million, worth about $ billion in dollars. The last stretch of street-level track was removed from Eleventh Avenue in 1941. The first train on the High Line viaduct, part of New York Central's West Side Line, ran along the structure in 1933. The elevated structure was dedicated on June 29, 1934, and was the first part of the West Side Improvement Project to be completed. The High Line, which originally ran from 35th Street to St. John's Freight Terminal, was designed to go through the center of blocks rather than over an avenue. As a result, the viaduct's construction necessitated the demolition of 640 buildings. It connected directly to factories and warehouses, allowing trains to load and unload inside buildings. Milk, meat, produce, and raw and manufactured goods could be transported and unloaded without disturbing street traffic. This reduced the load on the Bell Laboratories Building (which has housed the Westbeth Artists Community since 1970) and the former Nabisco plant in Chelsea Market, which were served from protected sidings in the buildings. The line also passed under the Western Electric complex at Washington Street. Although the section still existed , it is not connected to the developed park. Abandonment The growth of interstate trucking during the 1950s led to a drop in rail traffic throughout the U.S. St. John's Freight Terminal was abandoned in 1960, and the southernmost section of the line was demolished in the following decade due to low use. The West Village Apartments were then built on part of the former segment's right of way. The demolished section began at Bank Street and ran down Washington Street to Spring Street (just north of Canal Street). By 1978, the High Line viaduct was used to deliver just two carloads of cargo per week. The viaduct was shut down in 1980, when owner Conrail had to disconnect the viaduct from the rest of the national rail system for a year. The closure was necessitated as a result of the construction of Javits Center at 34th Street, which required that the curve at 35th Street be rebuilt. The last train on