STORY Many thought New York would never be the same OF THE when its audacious grid was planned 200 years ago. They were right. STREETS by Kevin Fallon / CAS ’09 This 1840 lithograph was one of a inexpensive maps also contained series published by the Society for details not in the original 1811 plan, the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge including two additional avenues— to educate the public on the grid eventually named Lexington and plan, which was rapidly changing Madison—and the Harlem Railroad, the city streets around them. These traced in red. 42 / FALL 2012 / NYU NYU / FALL 2012 / 43 photos c L ockwise photos: p F rom top A ges 42/43 © m L e F t © m U se U se U m o U m o F the cit F the cit Y o Y o F N F ew N ew Y ork, gi Y ork, the j. c F t o F joseph ver la re N ce d N A er reed, 50.358.68; this p vies co ll ectio N , 29.100.3060; © A ge © i p .N. ict p U he re L ps c o ll s tokes ectio N c , o t ll he New York ectio The writer was Edgar Allan City’s history. Two hundred years Opposite page: In 1776, when N , Outside the writer’s window, m Thomas Davies painted this Poe, who, in 1844, managed ago, the crux of the city was iri A Pu watercolor of the British rout m b to compose “The Raven” in crammed south of Canal Street. an L of American rebels from Fort ic Libr the din of construction rang d i a farmhouse at what is now In 1811, commissioners Simeon r Washington, he noted the battle A d A took place “near New York.” With the . r Walla 84th Street and Broadway, De Witt, Gouverneur Morris, and Y as a constant distraction from , Astor, Le introduction of the grid, the site would despite the full-scale overhaul John Rutherfurd announced ch eventually become part of the city. d his work. The newly graded of Manhattan happening just that they would transform the ivisio N outside his door. The grid— overcrowded area by imposing ox an N Above left: A broadside from 1853 o d street kicked up dust and F Art, that sprawling series of parallel an orderly system of roads t advertises lots of varying size, i L de location, and cost. The sale was p avenues running north and stretching up through the island’s N ri Fo gravel, and he feared that N sponsored by the city’s leading ts south and streets unfolding east rural and rocky reaches, from un d an brokerage firm, run by the Bleecker A tio and west—had arrived on what Houston Street to what would d family, which Harper’s reported p N what he loved best about New hotogr would become the Upper West become 155th Street. s; © m pulled in $6 million in sales in a single month in 1842. U A se York City would soon be lost Side. As it crept closer, Poe It was a brazen undertaking, phs, U m o mourned the loss of the island’s and the ensuing decades have t he New York F to this new development. the cit Above: The Real Estate Exchange natural, rugged beauty, and the seen further pushes: skyward, formed the heart of the city’s property homes dotting its rolling hills. toward the water, underground, Y market when William A. Rogers o “[T]hese magnificent places F Pu illustrated it in 1888 for Harper’s. N “Streets are already ‘mapped’ and with added flourishes, ew b L It also legitimized a notoriously ic Libr Y are doomed,” he lamented. through them, and they are no from residential plazas like ork, gi shady industry, which had once A held its auctions underground in longer suburban residences, but Washington Square to radical r F Y t o , Astor, Le a cramped basement. “The spirit of Improvement ‘town-lots,’ ” he continued. The additions like Central Park. The F mrs. c farmhouse where he sat would framework helped Manhattan’s A N Left: An early 1880s panorama of r has withered them with its ox soon be demolished to make population balloon from 100,000 L eggers, 03.26.2-.10, 01.72.1 an Park Avenue—or Fourth Avenue as it way for the grid. to 1.6 million. As Mayor Michael d t was still known then—and 94th Street i acrid breath.” L Today the tune has Bloomberg has mused, “It is de shows the Carnegie Hill neighborhood N Fo on the eve of transformation, as changed; the grid may be the almost as impossible to imagine un d squatters homes, farmhouses, and A most important and ingenious New York City without the grid tio old factories gave way to mansions N planning decision in New York plan as it is to comprehend the s and elegant row houses. 44 / FALL 2012 / NYU NYU / FALL 2012 / 45 photos: U pper L e F t © e zr A Ames (Americ an , 1768-1836), Simeon de Witt , cA. 1804, o i L gouverneur morri o N c an v A s, 153.7 x 123.2 cm (60 1/2 x 48 1/2 i S (1752-1816), 1808, oi L o N N c .), an c v o A ll s, phi ectio la N de z immer L phi A histor L Top: Simeon De Witt, portrayed here planned avenues and streets— i Art buildings, while sweeping audacity of its original ambition.” another exhibition—this time photos: p Other critics bemoaned grid even becoming a shorthand become part of the overall plan. Y by Ezra Ames ca. 1804, distinguished Mu And yet those are the goals celebrating the enterprising New to a painstakingly detailed m avenues are graded and paved that “there’s no way architects within the borough. The second- Perhaps it’s because these se himself as a mapmaker to George U U se m degree. Roughly 90 maps A around them. The grid took 60 of The Greatest Grid: The Master York City planning commissioner U can survive in this framework,” nature lingo of street-and-avenue coordinates tell so many stories Washington during the American ge 46 right © A m t A Ru Revolution, before going on to serve Plan of Manhattan 1811-2011 and “master builder” Robert make up Randel’s entire series, t the years to finish, and Poe was Ballon says. The grid had no coordinates—“91st and Second; that the exhibition attracted the as New York State surveyor general tgers U (Columbia University Press), a Moses. In the intervening five which was discovered in an A not the only naysayer. The centre ville on which ornate 34th and Sixth”—instantly places largest audience in the history for 50 years. He was a major force tw A N N ter ke iversit project required the redrawing behind the grid proposal. new book and corresponding years, Ballon clocked numerous uncelebrated pile inside the ew cathedrals could tower, as they a person directionally within of the museum, earning a three- Y Museum of the City of New York weekends to prepare for the Manhattan Borough president’s ork cit of property lines and many New do in a European metropolis. the city, details the character month extension and only closing N Y t/co , g exhibit. Both edited and curated December 2011 opening of office chamber. Ten of those i Yorkers saw this as a ploy to There were no axial boulevards, of a neighborhood, and signals this past July. Sam Roberts at Above: Gouverneur Morris was a F U Y t o rtes m F founding father of both the U.S. by Hilary Ballon, a professor of “The Greatest Grid” and its maps were stitched together un steal their land, though they were such as one finds in Washington, whether someone needs to travel The New York Times wrote, the gr Y icip government (he served New York o urban studies and architecture at corresponding book release, for the exhibition—the first time F eventually paid handsomely for D.C., Buenos Aires, and Paris, north, south, east, or west to get al “You don’t have to be a geometry in the Continental Congress and historic an A rchives; p Constitutional Convention, and even the Robert F. Wagner Graduate while balancing academic duties they’ve been available to the dchi their parcels. to showcase monuments and there. “Someone says, ‘I’m at major to love” the book, praising L penned the Constitution’s preamble) al School of Public Service, the on two continents (the professor public—and they will remain on dre According to biographer public squares. But a casual Second and Third,’ ” Ballon says. that just as the grid “imposed a societ and Manhattan’s grid. N A book and show reconstruct the digital file at the museum. “Now o James Parton, John Jacob stroll up a Manhattan avenue— is also deputy vice chancellor of ge 47 © m “How does one know where that Cartesian orderliness on the city,” F s Y imeo original Manhattan and the two NYU Abu Dhabi). She drafted students in Manhattan can go o Astor sold a lot near Wall Street Ballon’s version of a perfect New is? Which is the avenue? Yet we so “this book does on its subject F pe N U on their own block or the block de in 1810 for $8,000, and the centuries of growth since the grid a research assistant and nearly nn York City day—reveals “a special know.