Selects: The Manhattan Grid

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: The episode examines Manhattan’s grid, focusing on the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan that imposed the numbered-street layout above Houston Street. The hosts argue it was practical for growth and navigation but architecturally harsh, inattentive to topography, and deeply disruptive to existing land use, ecosystems, and residents. They trace its origins to earlier grid precedents and criticize the commissioners’ laziness, lack of green space planning, and broad use of eminent domain.

Main Topics: Manhattan’s grid and how it works (Priority: 5/5): The hosts explain the numbering system, east/west designations, odd-even street direction, and how the grid makes Manhattan easy to navigate above Houston Street despite Broadway and name changes uptown. Origins of the grid before 1811 (Priority: 4/5): The episode situates New York’s grid in a long history of urban planning, from the Indus Valley and Hippodamian planning to Spanish colonial grids and Philadelphia/DC. The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 (Priority: 5/5): The core topic is the plan that formalized Manhattan’s numbered avenues and streets, largely copying an earlier survey map while claiming to serve public good and future growth. Criticism of the plan’s aesthetics and human cost (Priority: 5/5): The hosts highlight complaints that the grid created a soulless, uniform, canyon-like city and required massive destruction of existing buildings, marshes, and terrain. Green space failure and Central Park as a later fix (Priority: 4/5): The plan barely included public open space, forcing later generations to create Central Park and other parks to compensate for the original lack of green areas. Growth, density, and apartment living (Priority: 3/5): The discussion notes that the grid eventually supported massive expansion and the rise of apartment living, with early examples like the Stuyvesant and the Dakota.

Key Arguments: The Manhattan grid is highly functional for wayfinding and growth, but it sacrifices organic urban character. The 1811 Commissioners’ Plan was not a visionary original design; it heavily borrowed from Casimir Theodore Goerck’s earlier survey map. The commissioners appear to have prioritized convenience for themselves and minimal effort over civic beauty or existing communities. The plan ignored terrain, waterways, and settlement patterns, resulting in major demolition and environmental alteration. The lack of planned green space was a major design failure, later partially remedied by Central Park and smaller parks. Despite intense criticism, the grid proved durable and became the structural basis of modern Manhattan development.

Data Points: Plan date: 1811 - The Commissioners’ Plan that shaped Manhattan above Houston Street was delivered in 1811. Initial law date: 1807 - New York state legislature passed the law authorizing the commission. Commissioners: 3 - Governor Morris, John Rutherford, and Simeon DeWitt were tasked with the plan. Manhattan length: About 13.5 miles - The island’s length helps explain why a grid was seen as practical for development. Numbered avenues: 11 - The plan created 11 numbered north-south avenues, plus later named avenues in some areas. Numbered streets: 155 - The commissioners laid out 155 numbered east-west streets. Street widths: 100 feet (widened streets) / 60 feet (others) - Avenue and selected cross-street widths were standardized; most streets were 60 feet wide. Widened cross streets: 15 - Certain streets were widened, including 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, 72nd, 79th, 86th, 90th, 106th, 116th, 125th, 135th, 145th, and 155th. Blocks in Goerck survey: 200 by 920 feet - The earlier survey map used block dimensions that were largely adopted by the commissioners. Parcel size: 5 acres - Goerck divided the common lands into five-acre parcels for sale. Road width in Goerck survey: 66 feet - The survey chain length informed the width of the roads in the earlier map. Public green space: 5% - The original plan allocated only about 5% of the grid to public green space. Parade ground size: 240 acres - Of roughly 400 acres of public green space, 240 acres were designated as a parade ground. Estimated demolition: About 40% - The plan required tearing down roughly 39-40% of existing buildings/home sites in the affected area. Vacant lots in 1875: 40,000 - Even by 1875, many lots remained undeveloped within the grid. Population milestone: 1875 - By this year, more New Yorkers lived above 14th Street than below it. First apartment building: 1869 - The Stuyvesant, initially mocked as 'Stuyvesant's folly,' was New York’s first apartment building.

Pivotal Quotes: "attended with the least inconvenience" — Commissioners’ report: The phrase is cited as the clearest sign that the plan minimized inconvenience for the commissioners, not the city. "one perpetual dead flat" — Walt Whitman: A literary criticism of Manhattan’s rigid, flat, rectangular cityscape. "hide-bound in its deadly uniformity of mean ugliness" — Edith Wharton: A strong critique of the grid’s aesthetic harshness and sameness.

Implications: The episode frames Manhattan’s grid as a triumph of scalability and a cautionary tale about planning without ecology, public space, or community input—useful for understanding modern urban design tradeoffs.