The infrastructure cost for regular grid patterns is generally higher than for patterns with discontinuous streets. Why manhattans grid system is so damn awesome video a comic, a professor of urban studies and architecture, a legendary street photographer and an. Well researched recap of the process under which the nyc street grid plan. How manhattan got its street grid excerpt scientific. A new exhibition examines the master plan that made new york what it is today. The unhinged surveyor who invented the manhattan street grid. Deemed by historians as the single most important document in new york citys development, the commissioners plan of 1811, which. It is a wonderful book about how new york became new york. Nobody knows about how new york became a gridded city. Building the erie canal and the american empire, water for gotham. There was a moment in the history of new york where the city.
How manhattan got its street grid excerpt to accommodate a fastgrowing new york city, john randel, jr. The grid plan emanates from our weaknessesthis layout of avenues and streets in new york city, this system of 90degree angles. More than that he makes a powerful argument for an alternate city plan than the grid. The text, written by leading historians of new york city, follows the grid s initial design, implementation, and evolution, and then speaks to its. The greatest grid shares the history of the commissioners plan, incorporating archival photos and illustrations, primary documents and testimony, and magnificent maps with essential analysis. A comprehensive history of new york citys grid system, this historical volume starts off strong but gradually falls into a recitation of minor historical personages and events. Edison pulled off one of the most remarkable infrastructure projects in nyc historyand. New york city is perhaps one of human history s greatest worksinprogress. It tells the story of new yorks revolutionary grid system, interesting especially because the manhattan grid utilizes every spot on the island of manhattan above the already builtup city. The master plan of manhattan, 18112011 at the museum of the city of new york demonstrates, an 1811 map turned an island into a. Gerard koeppel gives us a vivid description of how it probably happened. The commissioners plan of 1811 was the original design for the streets of manhattan above houston street and below 155th street, which put in place the rectangular grid plan of streets and lots that has defined manhattan to this day.
The plan mandated a grid of streets and avenues in. He is the author of several books including city on a grid. He has contributed to many magazines, tv programs and encyclopedias. It has been called the single most important document in new york citys development, and the plan has been. Why manhattans grid system is so damn awesome video. To me, the grid plan is puritan, its homogenizing, in a. Costs for streets depend largely on four variables. Historian koeppel bond of union continues his examinations of new yorkcentric infrastructure with a look at the story behind the development of new york citys extraordinary 1811 street gr. This book is fascinating for anybody interested in the history of new york, or in city planning in general. The grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid.
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