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100-462: Coney Island Creek is a 1.8-mile-long (2.9 km) tidal inlet in Brooklyn , New York City . It was created from a series of streams and inlets by land filling and digging activities starting in the mid-18th century which, by the 19th century, became a 3-mile-long (4.8 km) continual strait and a partial mudflat connecting Gravesend Bay and Sheepshead Bay , separating Coney Island from

200-480: A noise wall or a security gate —is completely separated from the road network except for one or two connections to arterial roads. In a way, this is a return to medieval styles: as noted in Spiro Kostof 's seminal history of urban design , The City Shaped , there is a strong resemblance between the street arrangements of modern American suburbs and those of medieval Arab and Moorish cities. In each case,

300-402: A 39% reduction. Simultaneously, block lengths increase from 200 × 200 feet to 1240 × 200 feet. When all five blocks have reached the ultimate size of 1,240 feet (380 m) four street lengths out of total eight have been eliminated. Block lengths of 1,000 feet (300 m) or larger rarely appear in grid plans and are not recommended as they hinder pedestrian movement (Pedestrianism, below). From

400-528: A Spanish civil engineer, defined a concept of urban planning, based on the grid, that he applied to the Eixample of Barcelona . The Eixample grid introduced innovative design elements which were exceptional at the time and even unique among subsequent grid plans: These innovations he based on functional grounds: the block size, to enable the creation of a quiet interior open space (60 m by 60 m) and allow ample sunlight and ventilation to its perimeter buildings;

500-544: A direct route. While the imposition of only one town form regardless of region could be seen as an imposition of imperial authority, there is no doubting the practical reasoning behind the formation of the Roman grid. Under Roman guidance, the grid was designed for efficiency and interchangeability, both facilitated by and aiding the expansion of their empire. As Japan and the Korean peninsula became politically centralized in

600-440: A diverse habitat for fish and shellfish species such as oysters, where they were once found in great numbers. Unfortunately, natural environmental processes have been disrupted by industrial runoff, combined sewer overflows, and habitat degradation. This has led to the loss of certain native species and reduced the overall resilience of the ecosystem. For example, pollution contributes to eutrophication, which depletes oxygen levels in

700-480: A ferry pier there. Another issue was that the creek itself was heavily polluted, and a Superfund cleanup project was being planned for the creek. Independent news site Hell Gate subsequently reported that test boats had repeatedly run aground in Coney Island Creek and that sand had returned to the creek after it was partially dredged in 2021. A ferry in Coney Island Creek also faced much opposition from

800-455: A few hundred settlers, became the nucleus for what is now a city of over 5 million people, the city of Melbourne. The unusual dimensions of the allotments and the incorporation of narrow 'little' streets were the result of compromise between Hoddle's desire to employ the regulations established in 1829 by previous New South Wales Governor Ralph Darling, requiring square blocks and wide, spacious streets and Bourke's desire for rear access ways (now

900-544: A layout. New Haven Colony , one of the earliest colonies in America, was designed with a tiny 9-square grid at its founding in 1638. On a grander scale, Philadelphia was designed on a rectilinear street grid in 1682, one of the first cities in North America to use a grid system. At the urging of city founder William Penn , surveyor Thomas Holme designed a system of wide streets intersecting at right angles between

1000-568: A peculiar combination of salt and fresh water that enables the tidal estuary to support various species.This natural variation in salinity , along with the sheltered environment, creates the creek as an important breeding and feeding ground for many species. In a similar way, urban estuaries such as Coney Island Creek support ecological resilience by offering refuge to species and allowing populations to recover after disturbances. For example, meta-population dynamics, where semi-isolated groups of individuals can interbreed across habitats, can enhance

1100-405: A result, street frequency drops and so does the total street length and, therefore, the cost. In general, it is not the street pattern per se that affects costs but the frequency of streets that it either necessitates or purposely incorporates. An inherent advantage of the orthogonal geometry of a proper grid is its tendency to yield regular lots in well-packed sequences. This maximizes the use of

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1200-475: A series of streets named after trees or plants, running northward alphabetically from Ash to Walnut. As in many cities, some of these streets have been given new names violating the system (the former D Street is now Broadway, the former 12th Avenue is now Park Boulevard, etc.); this has meant that 2nd, not 1st, is the most common street name in the United States. An exception to the typical, uniform grid

1300-404: Is Scandinavian for "sound"). Some fjord-type inlets are called canals , e.g.,  Portland Canal , Lynn Canal , Hood Canal , and some are channels, e.g.,  Dean Channel and Douglas Channel . Tidal amplitude, wave intensity, and wave direction are all factors that influence sediment flux in inlets. On low slope sandy coastlines, inlets often separate barrier islands and can form as

1400-457: Is 200 feet × 200 feet while Miletus' is half that size and Timgad's half again (see diagram). Houston, Sacramento and Barcelona are progressively bigger reaching up to four times the area of Portland's block. New York's 1811 plan (see above) has blocks of 200 feet (61 m). in width and variable lengths ranging from about 500 feet (150 m) to 900 feet (270 m) feet. The corresponding frequency of streets for each of these block sizes affects

1500-504: Is an obvious need for conservation efforts and better management of local waterways to protect these vulnerable species. In 2016, the New York City government found that a nearby apartment complex, Beach Haven Apartments, was dumping 200,000 U.S. gallons (760,000 L; 170,000 imp gal) of sewage each day into Coney Island Creek. The complex was fined $ 400,000 two years later. By late 2016, local residents were advocating

1600-540: Is not dependent on pattern configuration. As with the street width, any pattern can have wide or narrow pavements. Of all three factors that affect cost, street width, street length and pavement width, only street length is pattern dependent. An objective cost comparison would, therefore, rely on this variable with the full understanding that the other variables, though optional, can play a role. Traditional orthogonal grid patterns generally have greater street frequencies than discontinuous patterns. For example, Portland's block

1700-840: Is the plan of Savannah, Georgia (1733), known as the Oglethorpe Plan . It is a composite, cellular city block consisting of four large corner blocks, four small blocks in between and a public square in the centre; the entire composition of approximately ten acres (four hectares) is known as a ward. Its cellular structure includes all the primary land uses of a neighborhood and has for that reason been called fractal . Its street configuration presages modern traffic calming techniques applied to uniform grids where certain selected streets become discontinuous or narrow, thus discouraging through traffic. The configuration also represents an example of functional shared space , where pedestrian and vehicular traffic can safely and comfortably coexist. In

1800-617: The Babylonian Empire in the 18th century BC, ordered the rebuilding of Babylon : constructing and restoring temples, city walls, public buildings, and irrigation canals. The streets of Babylon were wide and straight, intersected approximately at right angles, and were paved with bricks and bitumen . The tradition of grid plans is continuous in China from the 15th century BC onward in the traditional urban planning of various ancient Chinese states. Guidelines put into written form in

1900-531: The Battle of Brooklyn took place on the marshy fields of Gowanus and Red Hook , where a British invasion force was off of Staten Island , preparing to attack New York City . This battle continued through NY and ended up taking place on the beaches of Gravesend , which marked the beginning of the Battle of Brooklyn. This battle, also referred to as the Battle of Long Island , was the first major armed campaign for

2000-558: The Belt Parkway in the 1930s. More fill was added in 1962 with the construction of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge . This turned Coney Island Creek into an inlet with the western and eastern ends of the island becoming peninsulas. None of the creek remains at the eastern end. That terminus, Sheepshead Bay, has been dredged and, for the most part, enclosed in bulkheads . The path of the landfill of what used to be

2100-474: The Billion Oyster project , represent a collaborative approach by government agencies, community organizations, and environmental groups toward restoring and preserving ecological integrity in Coney Island Creek. 40°34′45″N 73°59′20″W  /  40.57917°N 73.98889°W  / 40.57917; -73.98889 Inlet In marine geography , the term "inlet" usually refers to either

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2200-706: The Kaogongji during the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC) stated: "a capital city should be square on plan. Three gates on each side of the perimeter lead into the nine main streets that crisscross the city and define its grid-pattern. And for its layout the city should have the Royal Court situated in the south, the Marketplace in the north, the Imperial Ancestral Temple in the east and

2300-548: The New Zealand Company , the plans for Wellington , New Plymouth and Nelson . All of these towns were laid out on a grid plan, so it was easy to divide the land into acre plots of one chain by one furlong , 66 by 660 feet (20 by 201 m) (approximately 0.4 ha.), and these became known as town acres. Adelaide was divided into 1042 Town Acres. Maps showing the divisions of the town acres are available for Adelaide, Nelson, and Wellington. Ildefons Cerdà ,

2400-554: The River Torrens . Two areas south ( the city centre ) and north ( North Adelaide ) of the river were laid out in grid pattern, with the city surrounded by the Adelaide Park Lands . Hoddle Grid is the name given to the layout of Melbourne , Victoria, named after the surveyor Robert Hoddle , who marked it out in 1837 establishing the first formal town plan. This grid of streets, laid out when there were only

2500-668: The Schuylkill River to the west and the Delaware River to the east, including five squares of dedicated parkland. Penn advertised this orderly design as a safeguard against overcrowding, fire, and disease, which plagued European cities. Holme drafted an ideal version of the grid, but alleyways sprouted within and between larger blocks as the city took shape. As the United States expanded westward, grid-based city planning modeled on Philadelphia's layout would become popular among frontier cities, making grids ubiquitous across

2600-489: The castra were often standard, with each of its four walls generally having a length of 660 metres (2,150 ft). Familiarity was the aim of such standardisation: soldiers could be stationed anywhere around the Empire, and orientation would be easy within established towns if they had a standard layout. Each would have the aforementioned decumanus maximus and cardo maximus at its heart, and their intersection would form

2700-476: The '2-nd Line' on the eastern side, and the '3-rd Line' on the western side. After the reorganization of house numbering in 1834 and 1858 the even house numbers are used on the odd-numbered lines, and respectively odd house numbers are used for the even-numbered lines. The maximum numbers for 'lines' in Petersburg are 28-29th lines. Later in the middle of the 18th century another grid of rectangular blocks with

2800-411: The 'little' streets, for example Little Collins Street ). The city of Christchurch , New Zealand, was planned by Edward Jollie in 1850. The term "town acre" (often spelt with initial capital letters) may have originated with Edward Gibbon Wakefield who, in the 1830s, was involved in various schemes to promote the colonisation of South Australia and its capital, Adelaide , and, as founder of

2900-428: The 1960s. However, during the 1920s, the rapid adoption of the automobile caused a panic among urban planners , who, based on observation, claimed that speeding cars would eventually kill tens of thousands of small children per year. Apparently, at this early stage of the car's entry into the grid, the streets of major cities worldwide were the scene of virtual "slaughter" as the fatality rate in proportion to population

3000-465: The 1st millennium BC to the 11th century AD, also had grid-based designs. A workers' village (2570–2500 BC) at Giza , Egypt , housed a rotating labor force and was laid out in blocks of long galleries separated by streets in a formal grid. Many pyramid-cult cities used a common orientation: a north–south axis from the royal palace and an east–west axis from the temple, meeting at a central plaza where King and God merged and crossed. Hammurabi king of

3100-504: The 7th century AD, those societies adopted Chinese grid-planning principles in numerous locations. In Korea, Gyeongju , the capital of Unified Silla , and Sanggyeong , the capital of Balhae , adapted the Tang dynasty Chinese model. The ancient capitals of Japan, such as Fujiwara-Kyô (AD 694–710), Nara (Heijô-Kyô, AD 710–784), and Kyoto (Heian-Kyô, AD 794–1868) also adapted from Tang's capital, Chang'an . However, for reasons of defense,

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3200-741: The Altar to the Gods of Land and Grain in the west." Teotihuacan , near modern-day Mexico City , is the largest ancient grid-plan site in the Americas . The city's grid covered 21 square kilometres (8 square miles). Perhaps the most well-known grid system is that spread through the colonies of the Roman Empire. The archetypal Roman Grid was introduced to Italy first by the Greeks, with such information transferred by way of trade and conquest. Although

3300-584: The Americas were established according to this pattern, echoing the practices of earlier Indian civilizations. The baroque capital city of Malta , Valletta , dating back to the 16th century, was built following a rigid grid plan of uniformly designed houses, dotted with palaces, churches and squares. The grid plan became popular with the start of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. In 1606,

3400-491: The Billion Oyster Project focused on Coney Island Creek for several reasons. Historically, this area was home to a thriving oyster population, representing a crucial part of New York Harbor 's natural heritage. By restoring oysters in Coney Island Creek, the project aims to demonstrate that even urban environments can support healthy ecosystems . The creek has faced significant pollution and degradation over

3500-425: The Billion Oyster Project's focus on Coney Island Creek reflects a commitment to environmental restoration and community involvement in a vital urban area. In 2020, the city planned to build a NYC Ferry dock along the creek off Kaiser Park . The ferry dock would be the terminal of a new route to Pier 11/Wall Street ; the route, announced in 2019, was to have begun operations in 2021. Local activists rallied against

3600-658: The British Isles, the planned new town system involving a grid street layout was part of the system of burgage . An example of a medieval planned city in The Netherlands is Elburg . Bury St Edmunds is an example of a town planned on a grid system in the late 11th century. The Roman model was also used in Spanish settlements during the Reconquista of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was subsequently applied in

3700-625: The Great. His conquests were a step in the propagation of the grid plan throughout colonies, some as far-flung as Taxila in Pakistan, that would later be mirrored by the expansion of the Roman Empire. The Greek grid had its streets aligned roughly in relation to the cardinal points and generally looked to take advantage of visual cues based on the hilly landscape typical of Greece and Asia Minor. The street grid consisted of plateiai and stenophoi (equivalent to Roman decumani and cardines ). This

3800-452: The actual channel between an enclosed bay and the open ocean and is often called an "entrance", or a significant recession in the shore of a sea, lake or large river. A certain kind of inlet created by past glaciation is a fjord , typically but not always in mountainous coastlines and also in montane lakes. Multi-arm complexes of large inlets or fjords may be called sounds , e.g.,  Puget Sound , Howe Sound , Karmsund ( sund

3900-557: The adoption of the grid form as standard: the Romans established castra (forts or camps) first as military centres; some of them developed into administrative hubs. The Roman grid was similar in form to the Greek version of a grid but allowed for practical considerations. For example, Roman castra were often sited on flat land, especially close to or on important nodes like river crossings or intersections of trade routes. The dimensions of

4000-409: The amount of land that is devoted to streets, which becomes unavailable for development and therefore represents an opportunity cost . The wider the street, the higher the opportunity cost. Street width is determined by circulation and aesthetic considerations and is not dependent on the pattern configuration. Any configuration can have wide or narrow streets. Street length influences proportionately

4100-562: The beginning of the 20th century, with Sapporo , Japan (est. 1868) following a grid plan under American influence. New European towns were planned using grids beginning in the 12th century, most prodigiously in the bastides of southern France that were built during the 13th and 14th centuries. Medieval European new towns using grid plans were widespread, ranging from Wales to the Florentine region. Many were built on ancient grids originally established as Roman colonial outposts. In

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4200-442: The city and man-made conditions have led to dumping of sewage and discarded materials, including cars and ship parts. Restoration projects are limited and most conservation efforts are seen to be performed by the local community. Coney Island Creek extends eastward 1.8 miles (2.9 km) from Gravesend Bay to Shell Road and separates the west end of Coney Island from the neighborhoods of Gravesend and Bath Beach . The west end of

4300-578: The city. The project of this architect for Vasilyevsky Island was a typical rectangular grid of streets (originally intended to be canals, like in Amsterdam ), with three lengthwise thoroughfares, rectangularly crossed with about 30 crosswise streets. The shape of street blocks on Vasilyevsky Island are the same, as was later implemented in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 for Manhattan : elongated rectangles. The longest side of each block faces

4400-622: The colonies following their Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. This battle resulted in the retreat of General George Washington and the Continental Army from Brooklyn Heights, forcing them to cross the East River and regroup in Manhattan. This battle showcases a significant part of U.S. history that happened at Coney Island Creek. Coney Island Creek was still a minimally navigable waterway over its 3-mile length through

4500-557: The community unit at hand—the clan or extended family in the Muslim world, the economically homogeneous subdivision in modern suburbia—isolates itself from the larger urban scene by using dead ends and culs-de-sac . One famous grid system is in the British new town of Milton Keynes . In this planned city, which began construction in 1967, a system of ten "horizontal" (roughly east–west) and eleven "vertical" (roughly north–south) roads

4600-463: The country. Another well-known grid plan is the plan for New York City formulated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , a proposal by the state legislature of New York for the development of most of Manhattan above Houston Street . Washington, D.C. , the capital of the United States , was planned under French-American architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant . Under the L'Enfant plan,

4700-590: The creek as a Superfund site. In a site inspection, the EPA found toxic levels of cyanide, iron, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the sediment and surface water samples of the Coney Island Creek. However, the EPA has not yet called for an official cleanup of the creek nor designated it as a Superfund site despite the community still using the creek for recreational purposes. In 2018, the Coney Island History Project opened an exhibition about

4800-508: The creek bank, dead marine creatures have been found before such as horseshoe crabs, sand crabs, and shark eggs. This continues to demonstrate the need for greater restoration projects to recover Coney Island Creek and allow this ecosystem to become flourishing habitat for its native species once again. The Coney Island Creek, though within the highly developed area of Brooklyn, provides a very important habitat for various species, mainly birds, fish, and invertebrates .These tidal estuaries offer

4900-475: The creek follows Shore Parkway, Guider Avenue, and the triangular block between Neptune Avenue and Cass Place to a bulkhead at Sheepshead Bay. A northwestern part of the creek is known as a " ship graveyard " for the dead and abandoned ships found there. At the southern shore of the creek, the remains of a 45 feet (14 m) yellow submarine, the Quester I , protrudes from the water. Built from salvaged metal in

5000-478: The creek into the Gravesend Ship Canal . It would re-dredge the creek into a canal running in a straight east–west line and fill all the marsh land on either side of the creek to expand the urban grid to the edge of the canal. The plan was eventually abandoned and by 1924 local land owners had filled a portion of the creek. A major section of the creek was further filled in to allow construction of

5100-596: The creek is bordered by Coney Island Creek Park and Kaiser Park on the south side, and Calvert Vaux Park on the north side. The creek is crossed by the Cropsey Avenue and Stillwell Avenue bridges as well as two parallel rail trestles carrying the West End and Sea Beach subway lines (respectively served by the D train and N train). The eastern end is bordered by the Shore Parkway on

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5200-457: The delta of the Neva River . The peculiarity of 'lines' (streets) naming in this grid is that are each side of street has its own number, so one 'line' is a side of a street, not the whole street. The numbering is latently zero-based, however the supposed "zero line" has its proper name Kadetskaya liniya , while the opposite side of this street is called the '1-st Line'. Next street is named

5300-517: The designation of the creek as a Superfund site, which would provide funding to clean the hazardous materials from the creek. Community members testified that auto shops on nearby Neptune Avenue were still dumping cars into the creek. The creek was expected to undergo some minor cleanup between 2018 and 2020. By late 2020, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was considering designating

5400-535: The dock plan, arguing it would disrupt the ecosystems of the creek. There were also concerns that the addition of ferry service would worsen pollution in the creek. The implementation of the Coney Island ferry route was delayed and, in mid-2022, the EDC announced that the ferry route had been postponed indefinitely. One problem was that the sand in the Coney Island Creek shifted frequently, hampering efforts to construct

5500-597: The earliest planned cities were built using grid plans in the Indian subcontinent. By 2600 BC, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa , major cities of the Indus Valley civilization , were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets, running north–south and east–west. Each block was subdivided by small lanes. The cities and monasteries of Sirkap , Taxila and Thimi (in the Indus and Kathmandu Valleys ), dating from

5600-506: The eastern side of the peninsula, connected directly with the ocean. In 1750 a 0.25-mile-long canal (called the "Jamaica Ditch") was dug through the Coney Hook salt-marsh from a creek connecting to Gravesend Bay east to Hubbard's creek. This new waterway, allowing shipping traffic to travel from Jamaica Bay to New York Harbor without having to venture out into the ocean, connected Gravesend Bay and Sheepshead Bay together. The waterway behind

5700-485: The edges of the superblock, along the arterial. This paradigm prevailed between about 1930 and 1960, especially in Los Angeles , where notable examples include Leimert Park (an early example) and Panorama City (a late-period one). A prominent 20th century urbanist, Lewis Mumford , severely criticized some of the grid's characteristics: "With a T-square and a triangle, finally, the municipal engineer could, without

5800-437: The environment. The diverse habitats in the creek can benefit from the introduction of oyster reefs , promoting increased biodiversity essential for the overall health of the marine ecosystem. Furthermore, Coney Island Creek is vulnerable to flooding and erosion , particularly during storms, restoring oyster reefs contributes to natural coastal protection, helping to buffer against storm surges and enhance resilience. Overall,

5900-423: The forum, around which would be sited important public buildings. Indeed, such was the degree of similarity between towns that Higgins states that soldiers "would be housed at the same address as they moved from castra to castra ". Pompeii has been cited by both Higgins and Laurence as the best-preserved example of the Roman grid. Outside of the castra, large tracts of land were also divided in accordance with

6000-434: The grid further out from the centre, but maps also show that, in general, as the distance from the centre increases, a variety of patterns emerge in no particular discernible order. In juxtaposition to the grid, they appear random. These new patterns have been systematically classified and their design characteristics measured. In the United States, the grid system was widely used in most major cities and their suburbs until

6100-401: The grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogonal geometry, facilitate movement. The geometry helps with orientation and wayfinding and its frequent intersections with the choice and directness of route to desired destinations. In ancient Rome , the grid plan method of land measurement was called centuriation . The grid plan dates from antiquity and originated in multiple cultures; some of

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6200-401: The grid within the walls. These were typically 730 metres (2,400 ft) per side (called centuria ) and contained 100 parcels of land (each called heredium ). The decumanus maximus and cardo maximus extended from the town gates out towards neighbouring settlements. These were lined up to be as straight as possible, only deviating from their path due to natural obstacles that prevented

6300-457: The higher the frequency of the streets. As the frequency of street increases so does the number of intersections. Intersections normally cost more than straight street length because they are labour-intensive and require street and traffic signage. Pavement width influences the cost by affecting the amount of materials and labour required to provide a finished road surface. Pavement width is generally based on traffic engineering considerations and

6400-550: The history of the Coney Island creek titled: "Coney Island Creek and the Natural World." In recent years, there have been several efforts made to help restore the ecosystem of Coney Island Creek, one of which being The Billion Oyster Project . The Billion Oyster Project is a significant initiative aimed at restoring the oyster population in New York Harbor, particularly in areas like Coney Island Creek. In 2018,

6500-456: The idea of the grid was present in Hellenic societal and city planning, it was not pervasive prior to the 5th century BC. However, it slowly gained primacy through the work of Hippodamus of Miletus (498–408 BC), who planned and replanned many Greek cities in accordance with this form. The concept of a grid as the ideal method of town planning had become widely accepted by the time of Alexander

6600-482: The islands was called Gravesend Creek in the early 19th century since it cut below the town of Gravesend (later the name was used interchangeably with "Coney Island Creek"). Eventually Hubbard's and the other creeks and inlets that separated the islands were filled by a combination of natural process and land development, leaving just a single island that came to be called Coney Island and a single creek behind it that came to be called Coney Island Creek. In August 1776,

6700-620: The late 1960s, it was never able to maintain an even keel and was abandoned. There are other leftover shipwrecks left in the creek, but there origins are somewhat unknown. They either are left over from The Battle of Brooklyn, or they are left over from when the creek was somewhat active in the 20th century. The creek is also used for performing baptisms. The health and behavior of marine life in Coney Island Creek have been impacted by environmental factors and human activities in previous years. Pollution from nearby urban development has degraded water quality, leading to harmful substances lingering in

6800-462: The local residents who believed it would lead to additional air, water, and noise pollution and reduce safe playing area for children and families. Despite the recent restoration efforts over the years, Coney Island Creek is still filled with litter from the surrounding urban area and continues to affect the creek to this day. Washed up along the shore line of the creek are various types of garbage including plastic bags, broken pieces of glass. Along

6900-404: The mainland. The strait was closed off in the early 20th century due to further land development and later construction projects. Today only the western half of Coney Island Creek exists. What once was a thriving fish and oyster population in salt marshes, freshwater streams, and expansive forests is now an unnatural environment wrecked by industrial pollution and construction debris. Urbanization of

7000-612: The new cities established during the Spanish colonization of the Americas , after the founding of San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Canary Islands) in 1496. In 1573, King Philip II of Spain compiled the Laws of the Indies to guide the construction and administration of colonial communities. The Laws specified a square or rectangular central plaza with eight principal streets running from the plaza's corners. Hundreds of grid-plan communities throughout

7100-699: The newly founded city of Mannheim in Germany was the first Renaissance city laid out on the grid plan. Later came the New Town in Edinburgh and almost the entire city centre of Glasgow , and many planned communities and cities in Australia , Canada and the United States . Derry , constructed in 1613–1618, was the first planned city in Ireland . The central diamond within a walled city with four gates

7200-411: The north side and Neptune Avenue on the south side. The eastern portion of Coney Island Creek runs along private industrial property and several acres formerly owned by Keyspan , the local electricity provider. The creek terminates at Shell Road where a storm sewer emerges from under the road (designated stormwater outfall CI-641 in city plans). At the time of European settlement the land that makes up

7300-405: The number of street components that have to be constructed such as pavement, curbs and sidewalks, storm sewers and drains, light poles, and trees. The street length of a given area of development depends on the frequency at which streets occur which in turn depends on the length and width of a block. The higher the frequency of streets the longer is their total length. The smaller the block dimensions

7400-488: The numbered streets appeared in the continental part of the city: 13 streets named from the '1-st Rota' up to the '13-th Rota', where the companies ( German : Rotte , Russian : рота ) of the Izmaylovsky Regiment were located. Many of the earliest cities in the United States, such as Boston , did not start with a grid system. However, even in pre-revolutionary days some cities saw the benefits of such

7500-508: The original District of Columbia was developed using a grid plan that is interrupted by diagonal avenues, most famously Pennsylvania Avenue . These diagonals are often connected by traffic circles , such as Dupont Circle and Washington Circle . As the city grew, the plan was duplicated to cover most of the remainder of the capital. Meanwhile, the core of the city faced disarray and the McMillan Plan , led by Senator James McMillan ,

7600-430: The pedestrian perspective, the smaller the block is, the easier the navigation and the more direct the route. Consequently, the finer grids are preferred. Patterns that incorporate discontinuous street types such as crescents and culs-de-sac have not, in general, regarded pedestrian movement as a priority and, consequently, have produced blocks that are usually in the 1,000 feet (300 m) range and often exceed it. As

7700-617: The planners of Tokyo eschewed the grid, opting instead for an irregular network of streets surrounding the Edo Castle grounds. In later periods, some parts of Tokyo were grid-planned, but grid plans are generally rare in Japan, and the Japanese addressing system is accordingly based on increasingly fine subdivisions, rather than a grid. The grid-planning tradition in Asia continued through

7800-452: The present day Coney Island was several barrier islands with interconnecting waterways that were all constantly changing shape. Coney Island Creek was once primarily characterized by salt marshes, hardwood forests, and freshwater streams. The waterway that became Coney Island Creek did not originally extend across the back side of the island since part of the land on the west end was a peninsula called Coney Hook. Hubbard's Creek, which ran down

7900-402: The rectilinear geometry, the wide streets and boulevards to sustain high mobility and the truncated corners to facilitate turning of carts and coaches and particularly vehicles on fixed rails. In maps of larger American cities, the downtown areas are almost always grids. These areas represent the original land dimensions of the founded city, generally around one square mile. Some cities expanded

8000-454: The relatively narrow street with a numeric name (in Petersburg they are called Liniya (Line) ) while the shortest side faces wide avenues. To denote avenues in Petersburg, a special term prospekt was introduced. Inside the grid of Vasilyevsky Island there are three prospekts, named Bolshoi ( Big ), Sredniy ( Middle ) and Maly ( Small ) while the far ends of each line cross with the embankments of Bolshaya Neva and Smolenka rivers in

8100-643: The resilience of the native species, even in the urban environments. These environments further allow for adaptation by species to more environmental stressors, such as pollution and variable salinity levels. The aquatic animals at Coney Island Creek exhibit high plasticity regarding their feeding and reproductive behaviors in response to changes in salinity and sediment conditions and urban runoff . Terrestrial species, including avian populations and small mammals, use urban vegetation and artificial structures like light poles and construction debris as refuge from inclement weather and nesting sites. These adaptations bring out

8200-432: The result of storm events . Alongshore sediment transport can cause inlets to close if the action of tidal currents flowing through an inlet do not flush accumulated sediment out of the inlet. Grid plan In urban planning , 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 . Two inherent characteristics of

8300-467: The river on 640 acres (exactly 1 square mile; about 2.6 km ). After surveying the land, Waller organized the almost immediate sale of 306 lots, and by the end of the year the entire Texas government had arrived by oxcart at the new site. Apart from the speed of surveying advantage, the rationale at the time of the grid's adoption in this and other cities remains obscure. In 1836 William Light drew up his plans for Adelaide , South Australia, spanning

8400-498: The role of the creek as an important ecological corridor amidst intense urbanization. As many as 244 bird species have been recorded at Coney Island Creek.Some of the species found at the creek are Horned larks , Snow buntings , and American oystercatchers . The sights of these varying species of birds rely on migratory patterns that are influenced by changing environments, altered magnetic fields and necessity for breeding and food resources. The Coney Island creek once served as

8500-422: The second were usually too wide for purely neighborhood functions... as for its contribution to the permanent social functions of the city, the anonymous gridiron plan proved empty." In the 1960s, traffic engineers and urban planners abandoned the grid virtually wholesale in favor of a " street hierarchy ". This is a thoroughly "asymmetric" street arrangement in which a residential subdivision—often surrounded by

8600-434: The slightest training as either an architect or a sociologist, 'plan' a metropolis, with its standard lots, its standard blocks, its standard street widths, in short, with its standardized comparable, and replaceable parts. The new gridiron plans were spectacular in their inefficiency and waste. By usually failing to discriminate sufficiently between main arteries and residential streets, the first were not made wide enough while

8700-461: The street length. A simple example of a grid street pattern (see diagram) illustrates the progressive reduction in total street length (the sum of all individual street lengths) and the corresponding increase in block length. For a corresponding reduction of one, two, three and four streets within this 40-acre (16 ha) parcel, the street length is reduced from an original total of 12,600 feet (3,800 m) to 7,800 feet (2,400 m) linear feet,

8800-559: The turn of the 20th century. By the early part of the century, industries started to develop around the creek. This resulted in it becoming polluted with substances including arsenic, cyanide, and benzene. The largest polluters included the Brooklyn Yarn Dye Company and the Brooklyn Union Gas Company. In a period from the late 19th century through the early 20th century there were plans to turn

8900-408: The water that could affect marine life . Additionally, the creek's confined space and fluctuating tides can trap marine animals, as evidenced by the 2013 incident involving a dolphin that became disoriented and stranded. This dolphin became trapped and was found dead in the creeks waterway. Incidents like these showcase the challenges faced by marine life in adapting to their changing habitat . There

9000-599: The water, making it challenging for some species to survive. Urbanization has also altered the creek's natural flow and salinity, crucial factors for aquatic biodiversity. Some of the native aquatic species found at Coney Island Creek are the striped bass and Atlantic silverside . Although, there has been some ecological and environmental setbacks, Coney Island creek has been the focus of various conservation efforts aimed at restoring its ecological health and enhancing its resilience to environmental challenges.Some key initiatives include: These conservation efforts, combined with

9100-467: The westward development of the United States, the use of the grid plan was nearly universal in the construction of new settlements, such as in Salt Lake City (1870), Dodge City (1872) and Oklahoma City (1890). In these western cities the streets were numbered even more carefully than in the east to suggest future prosperity and metropolitan status. One of the main advantages of the grid plan

9200-423: The years, and the project seeks to improve water quality through the natural filtration capabilities of oysters, helping to mitigate the impacts of urban runoff and pollutants. Additionally, Coney Island Creek provides an accessible location for local community engagement and education, encouraging schools and community members to participate in hands-on restoration activities and fostering a sense of stewardship for

9300-412: Was adopted to build a National Mall and a parks system that is still today a jewel of the city. Often, some of the streets in a grid are numbered (First, Second, etc.), lettered, or arranged in alphabetical order. Downtown San Diego uses all three schemes: north–south streets are numbered from west to east, and east–west streets are split between a lettered series running southward from A through L and

9400-597: Was based on Greek Ionic ideas, and it was here that the main east–west and north–south axes of a town (the decumanus maximus and cardo maximus respectively) could first be seen in Italy. According to Stanislawski (1946), the Romans did use grids until the time of the late Republic or early Empire, when they introduced centuriation , a system which they spread around the Mediterranean and into northern Europe later on. The military expansion of this period facilitated

9500-461: Was considered a good design for defence. The grid pattern was widely copied in the colonies of British North America . In Russia the first planned city was St. Petersburg founded in 1703 by Peter I . Being aware of the modern European construction experience which he examined in the years of his Grand Embassy to Europe , the Czar ordered Domenico Trezzini to elaborate the first general plan of

9600-415: Was given its own name. The system provided very easy transport within the city, although it confused visitors who were unfamiliar with the system. The grid squares thus formed are far larger than the city blocks described earlier, and the road layouts within the grid squares are generally 'organic' in form – matching the street hierarchy model described above. Street width , or right of way (ROW), influences

9700-747: Was more than double the current rate. In 2009, after several decades of road safety improvements and a continuous decline in fatalities, an estimated 33,963 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes and, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children from 3 to 14 years old." Planners, therefore, called for an inwardly focused " superblock " arrangement that minimized through automobile traffic and discouraged cars from traveling on anything but arterial roads ; traffic generators, such as apartment complexes and shops, would be restricted to

9800-465: Was probably best exemplified in Priene , in present-day western Turkey, where the orthogonal city grid was based on the cardinal points, on sloping terrain that struck views out towards a river and the city of Miletus . The Etruscan people , whose territories in Italy encompassed what would eventually become Rome, founded what is now the city of Marzabotto at the end of the 6th century BC. Its layout

9900-579: Was that it allowed the rapid subdivision and auction of a large parcel of land. For example, when the legislature of the Republic of Texas decided in 1839 to move the capital to a new site along the Colorado River , the functioning of the government required the rapid population of the town, which was named Austin . Charged with the task, Edwin Waller designed a fourteen-block grid that fronted

10000-432: Was used, with roundabouts at each intersection. The horizontal roads were all given names ending in 'way' and H numbers (for 'horizontal', e.g., H3 Monks Way). The vertical roads were given names ending in 'street' and V numbers (for 'vertical', e.g., V6 Grafton Street ). Each grid road was spaced roughly one kilometre along from the next, forming squares of approximately one square kilometre. Each square and each roundabout

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