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103-477: The street was created by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 as one of 16 north-south streets specified as 100 feet (30 m) in width, including 12 numbered avenues and four designated by letter located east of First Avenue . In 1824, prior to any construction, its width was reduced to 60 feet (18 m), the standard for cross-streets, by taking 40 feet (12 m) from the east side. The city reasoned that

206-602: A Commission the three men suggested by the Common Council to establish a comprehensive street plan for Manhattan: Gouverneur Morris , a Founding Father of the United States ; the lawyer John Rutherfurd , a former United States Senator representing New Jersey and a relative to Morris by marriage; and the state Surveyor General , Simeon De Witt , a cousin of De Witt Clinton , who was the Mayor of New York City,

309-526: A State Senator, and the most powerful politician in New York. A month later, the legislature gave the Commissioners "exclusive power to lay out streets, roads, and public squares, of such width, extent, and direction, as to them shall seem most conducive to public good, and to shut up, or direct to be shut up, any streets or parts thereof which have been heretofore laid out ... [but] not accepted by

412-790: A centralized monarchy. This example was followed on the European continent in cities such as New Brandenburg in Germany , which the Teutonic Knights founded in 1248, and in the many towns planned and built in the 14th century in the Florentine Republic . The gridiron idea spread with the Renaissance , although in many cities, for instance London following the Great Fire of 1666 , it failed to take root. However

515-414: A city zoning law was passed in 1885, banning residential structures over 80 feet (24 m) tall, residential hotels and standard hotels continued to be developed on this part of West 59th Street, as they were exempted from the zoning codes. The three blocks of 59th Street bordering Central Park were renamed after the park in 1896. During the first two decades of the 20th century, the new Plaza Hotel,

618-410: A commission with sweeping powers in 1807, and their plan was presented in 1811. The Commissioners were Gouverneur Morris , a Founding Father of the United States ; the lawyer John Rutherfurd , a former United States Senator ; and the state Surveyor General , Simeon De Witt . Their chief surveyor was John Randel Jr. , who was 20 years old when he began the job. The Commissioners' Plan is arguably

721-592: A degree of immunity from legal entanglements. In 1809, Randel's surveying again seems to have been focused on positioning the Common Lands, and Goerck's lots and streets in it, to the rest of the island. Goerck had shown their relationship to the Bloomingdale Road to the west, much of which would become part of Broadway, and the East Post Road to the east, a road which would be demapped by

824-523: A grid for the entire island, should the Commission decide to go in that direction. Randel wrote afterwards that in the course of his work he "was arrested by the Sheriff, on numerous suits instituted ... for trespass and damage by ... workmen, in passing over grounds, cutting off branches of trees. &c., to make surveys under instructions from the Commissioners." In August 1808, Randel was sued by

927-479: A gridiron pattern – Goerck was not instructed to do so – most of the lots were organized into two columns of 45 lots with a 65-foot (20 m) road between the columns. The lots were oriented as the lots of the future Commissioners' Plan would be, with the east–west axis longer than the north–south axis; their five-acre size would become the template for the Commissioners' five acre blocks; and Goerck's middle road would eventually reappear on

1030-640: A half blocks are bidirectional traffic; the westbound lane of 59th Street is funneled onto the Queensboro Bridge just east of the intersection with Second Avenue. 59th Street was created under the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 as one of the minor east-west streets across Manhattan. The "59th Street" name initially applied to the entirety of the street between the Hudson and East Rivers. The addresses on Central Park South follow those of what had been West 59th Street. The construction of Central Park in

1133-428: A landowner for trespass and causing damage to the landowner's property, such as cutting down trees and trampling on crops; $ 5000 was requested in damages, but the landowner received only $ 109.63, just enough to cover his court costs. Nonetheless, the potential for future problems was real. Gouverneur Morris asked the Common Council for a means of protecting the necessary actions of the surveyors, but, for political reasons,

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1236-468: A manner as to unite regularity and order with the public convenience and benefit and in particular to promote the health of the City." At the time, foul air, or " miasma ," associated with sewage, standing water and low sunlight, was thought to be the cause of many diseases, and the city had lived through decades of epidemics of yellow fever . In March 1807, the state legislature responded by appointing as

1339-468: A regular right-angled grid tilted 29 degrees east of true north to roughly replicate the angle of Manhattan island. The Commission chose not to use circles and ovals such as Pierre L'Enfant had used in his design of Washington D.C. , convinced that simple rectangles were best, the most convenient and easiest to build on, and therefore the most conducive to the orderly development of the city. The combination of north–south avenues and east–west streets at

1442-475: A relatively inexperienced 20-year-old. Randel's surveying in 1808 had nothing to do with laying out the grid, which had not yet been determined as the final result of the Commission's work. Instead, he was determining the topography and ground cover of the land and the placement of natural features such as hills, rocks, swamps, marshes, streams, and ponds, as well as man-made features such as houses, barns, stables, fences, footpaths, cleared fields and gardens. He

1545-692: Is a crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan , running from York Avenue and Sutton Place on the East Side of Manhattan to the West Side Highway on the West Side . The three-block portion between Columbus Circle and Grand Army Plaza is known as Central Park South , since it forms the southern border of Central Park . There is a gap in the street between Ninth Avenue / Columbus Avenue and Columbus Circle, where

1648-626: Is no longer given that designation. Carl Schurz Park , the location of Gracie Mansion , is adjacent to the avenue at this point. In 1928, the New York City Board of Estimate ruled that development below East 84th Street was restricted to residential use. Currently, there is no bus that travels on Avenue B. The M9 bus formerly used this street from East Houston Street to 14th Street. The M79 bus travels along East End Avenue from 80th Street to 79th Street. Notes Commissioners%27 Plan of 1811 The Commissioners' Plan of 1811

1751-475: Is now Cortlandt Street to Christopher Street  – and offered the plots to artisans and laborers at affordable rents. The second instance came when the powerful De Lancey family decided to break up part of their vast estate in the 1760s, and laid out a grid of streets centered on "De Lancey Square". As royalists, their holdings were confiscated after the American Revolution , but

1854-465: Is one-way westbound between the West Side Highway (at the Hudson River ) and Ninth/Columbus Avenues . There is a one-block gap between Ninth/Columbus Avenues and Eighth Avenue / Central Park West at Columbus Circle . This section is occupied by Time Warner Center . The portion of the street forming the southern boundary of Central Park from Columbus Circle on the west to Fifth Avenue on

1957-533: Is renamed Columbus Avenue; Tenth Avenue is renamed Amsterdam Avenue; and Eleventh Avenue becomes West End Avenue. 59th Street forms the border between Midtown Manhattan and Upper Manhattan . The New York Times stated in 2004 that "Fifty-ninth Street stretches across Manhattan like a belt, with Central Park South as its fancy buckle." As with numbered streets in Manhattan , Fifth Avenue separates 59th Street into "east" and "west" sections. 59th Street

2060-571: Is the grid's cornerstone. The numbered streets running east–west are 60 feet (18 m) wide, with about 200 feet (61 m) between each pair of streets, resulting in a grid of approximately 2,000 long, narrow blocks. With each combined street and block adding up to about 260 feet (79 m), there are almost exactly 20 blocks per mile. Fifteen crosstown streets were designated as 100 feet (30 m) wide: 14th , 23rd , 34th , 42nd , 57th , 72nd , 79th , 86th , 96th , 106th , 116th , 125th , 135th , 145th and 155th Streets. The width of

2163-804: The Adirondack Mountains and on the Oneida Reservation , mapped the Albany Turnpike between Albany and Schenectady and the Great Western Turnpike from Albany to Cooperstown , and surveyed property lots in Albany and in Central New York, particularly Oneida County When he was hired by the commission – on De Witt's suggestion and with Morris' approval – he was still

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2266-567: The Civil War . Faced with opposition and conflict from various political factions, including property owners whose private deeds conflicted with the property lines of the Mangin–Goerck, and the reality that any plan the Council came up with could be overturned by a subsequent Council, the city asked the state legislature for help. The Council said its goal was "laying out Streets ... in such

2369-641: The Deutsche Bank Center is located. While Central Park South is a bidirectional street, most of 59th Street carries one-way traffic. 59th Street forms the border between Midtown Manhattan and Upper Manhattan . North of 59th Street, the neighborhoods of the Upper West Side and Upper East Side continue on either side of Central Park. On the West Side , Manhattan's numbered avenues are renamed north of 59th Street: Eighth Avenue (at Columbus Circle) becomes Central Park West; Ninth Avenue

2472-527: The New York Coliseum complex. The Coliseum, in turn, was demolished and replaced with Time Warner Center in the early 2000s. 59th Street is served by the following New York City Subway stations: The Roosevelt Island Tramway terminates at Second Avenue near 59th Street and extends eastward to Roosevelt Island . The New York Central Railroad 's 59th Street station , a never-opened railroad station, exists on Park Avenue , which now carries

2575-558: The 1860s and 1870s led to the development of upscale hotels, apartments, and other institutions on this section of 59th Street in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Spanish Flats, at Seventh Avenue, was the first such luxury apartment, having been built in 1883. The original Plaza Hotel , the Hawthorne, and the Navarro Flats were all developed in the 1880s and 1890s, though all were subsequently demolished. Even after

2678-465: The 300-foot (91 m) square block with streets that are 60 to 80 feet (18 to 24 m) wide. This size grid can be found in Anchorage; Bismarck, North Dakota ; Missoula, Montana ; Mobile, Alabama ; Phoenix, Arizona ; and Tulsa, Oklahoma . The streets of lower Manhattan had, for the most part, developed organically as the colony of New Amsterdam  – which became New York when

2781-609: The American preference for the grid. The effects of the Ordinance of 1785 have been called "The largest single act of national planning in [American] history." There was significant variation in the size of the grids used. Carson City, Nevada , may have the smallest at 180-foot (55 m) square and 60-foot (18 m) streets, while Salt Lake City, Utah , is much larger at 600-foot (180 m) square blocks surrounded by 120-foot (37 m) streets. The most popular appears to be

2884-668: The Artisans' Gate at Seventh Avenue , and the Merchants' Gate at Columbus Circle . The section between Fifth Avenue and Second Avenue is one-way eastbound. At Second Avenue , 59th Street branches off onto the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge , which is often referred to as the 59th Street Bridge . 59th Street continues east to York Avenue and Sutton Place, just short of the East River . The remaining two and

2987-723: The British took it over from the Dutch without firing a shot in 1664 – grew. The roads were a mixture of country lanes, short streets and Native American and animal trails, all shaped by haphazard history, happenstance and property ownership without any overarching order, until around 1800 when the Common Council of New York began to assert authority over the streetscape, promulgating regulations to keep them clear and to require new streets be approved in advance. They also began to lay assessments on property owners to pay for

3090-445: The Commission or the surveyors to the landowner, and they were to view the property together to assess the situation. The landowner was to present a bill for "reasonable damages", which the city was to pay within 30 days; any disagreement among the parties as to what was reasonable would, of course, end up in court. The new law did not completely stop lawsuits, but it cut down their number, and allowed Randel to go about his business with

3193-405: The Commission, their plan being almost identical to Mangin's in that area. Politics may have caused the Common Council to officially decertify Mangin's plan for the future expansion of the city, but the episode nonetheless was a step forward in the development of the city's future. In the "warning label" the Council caused to have placed on copies of Mangin's map was the statement that expansion of

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3296-464: The Commissioner's remit was set at Houston Street  – "North Street" at the time – "Art Street", which was located approximately where Washington Square North is today, and "Greenwich Lane", now Greenwich Street . Greenwich Village , then independent of New York City, and the current West Village were not part of the area the Commission was to deal with. Morris

3399-432: The Commissioners' Plan, without acknowledgment, as the 100-foot (30 m) wide Fifth Avenue. Unfortunately for the Common Council, the disadvantages of the plots in the Common Lands worked against their sale, and there was no run on the market to buy them. Still, sales continued at a steady, if not spectacular, pace. By 1794, with the city growing ever more populated and the inhabited area constantly moving north towards

3502-428: The Commissioners' Plan. Little is known about Randel's surveying in 1810. And in the meantime, the Commissioners were, generally speaking, distracted by various other personal and political business; although they met – infrequently – there is no record of what they discussed, or if they were getting closer to a decision about what their plan would entail. Finally, on November 29, 1810, with

3605-537: The Common Council." The jurisdiction of the Commission was all of Manhattan north of Houston Street, and into the Hudson and East Rivers 600 feet beyond the low water mark. They were given 4 years to have the island surveyed, and then to produce a map showing the placement of future streets. There were few specifications given to them about those streets, except that streets were to be at least 50 feet (15 m) wide, while "leading streets" and "great avenues" were to be at least 60 feet (18 m) wide. The baseline of

3708-441: The Common Lands, the Council decided to try again, hiring Goerck once more to re-survey and map the area. He was instructed to make the lots more uniform and rectangular and to lay out roads to the west and east of the middle road, as well as to lay out east–west streets of 60 feet (18 m) each. Later, the Commissioners would use Goerck's East and West Roads for their Fourth and Sixth Avenues. Goerck's cross streets would become

3811-567: The Council in 1803. However, Mangin had gone well beyond the terms of his commission, and the map not only showed the existing streets of the city, as instructed, but was also, in Mangin's words, "the Plan of the City ... such as it is to be   ..." In other words, the Mangin–Goerck Plan was a guide to where and how Mangin believed future streets should be laid out. It called for enlarging

3914-427: The Council, but then decided to team up. Goerck died of yellow fever during the course of the project, but Mangin completed it and delivered the draft of the Mangin–Goerck Plan to the Council in 1799 for correction of street names; the final engraved version – made by engraver Peter Maverick, who would also go on to engrave the published map of the Commissioners' Plan – would be presented to

4017-503: The East River. As Gerard Koeppel comments: In sum, Mangin's plan of the city "such as it is to be" was a synthesizing of patterns already establishing themselves at the suburban fringes of the city and, in the city proper, an orderly filling in east and west with linear streets out to continuous roads along the waterfronts. The city government hadn't asked for it, but it seemed to be just what it wanted. The Council apparently accepted

4120-474: The Grand Parade between 23rd Street and 33rd Street , which was the precursor to Madison Square Park , as well as four squares named Bloomingdale, Hamilton, Manhattan, and Harlem, a wholesale market complex, and a reservoir. Central Park , the massive urban greenspace in Manhattan running from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue and from 59th Street to 110th Street , was not a part of the plan, as it

4223-658: The Survey of the Coast (which was renamed the United States Coast Survey in 1836 and the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878)  – so the Council was back at square one. So, in 1807, they acted again. Optimists at that time expected the city's population, then around 95,000 people, to expand to 400,000 by 1860, when, in fact, it reached 800,000 before the beginning of

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4326-588: The U.S. He accepted the job, and the terms: $ 5 per day for Hassler (equivalent to $ 97 in 2023), $ 4 a day for his assistant (equivalent to $ 78 in 2023), and $ 1 per day for expenses (equivalent to $ 19 in 2023), plus a budget sufficient to hire a surveying crew. He was scheduled to depart from Philadelphia in July, in time for at least part of the 1806 surveying season, but never appeared. Finally, in October, he sent his regrets: both he and his wife had taken ill on

4429-758: The US. The Ordinance required newly created states west of the original thirteen, to have rectilinear boundaries, rather than boundaries shaped by natural features, and within the new areas, beginning in the Northwest Territory , everything was to be divided into rectangles: townships were six   miles by six   miles (9.7 km × 9.7 km) , sections were one   mile by one   mile (1.6 km × 1.6 km) , and individual lots were 60 by 125 feet (18 m × 38 m). Cities such as Anchorage, Alaska ; Erie, Pennsylvania ; Miami, Florida ; and Sacramento, California , all show

4532-431: The chief surveyor for the Commission, and finally the Commission made an agreement with Loss that he would do only the first task that had been assigned to him: to make a map of Manhattan island, and get accurate measurements for the location of certain streets which would provide a framework for the plan of future streets. For this, Loss would receive no wages but a simple fee of $ 500 (equivalent to $ 10,405 in 2023). Loss

4635-463: The city by fire, warfare and other calamities offered an opportunity for the grid system to be used to replace more evolutionary street layouts, especially in outlying areas, while the central city, often sheltered behind medieval walls, remained organic and undesigned. In the United States the gridiron now predominates. In areas that were under Spanish control, the 1753 Laws of the Indies specified

4738-403: The city's economic influence. New Amsterdam , however, had not been laid out in a grid pattern by the Dutch. The streets of lower Manhattan were more organic, and incorporated Native American trails, cow paths, and streets that followed the topography and hydrology of the swampy land. By the time of the passage of the federal Land Ordinance of 1785 , the grid plan was firmly established in

4841-500: The city, such as shown on the map, was "subject to such future arrangements as the Corporation may deem best calculated to promote the health, introduce regularity, and conduce to the convenience of the City." Here the Council was showing its willingness to consider actively planning for how the city would develop. In 1806, they took a first step by hiring Ferdinand Hassler . Hassler, a Swiss mathematician and geodetic surveyor who

4944-469: The common lands to encompass the entire island." Historian Gerard Koeppel comments "In fact, the great grid is not much more than the Goerck plan writ large. The Goerck plan is modern Manhattan's Rosetta Stone   ..." In 1797, the Council commissioned Goerck and Joseph-François Mangin , another city surveyor, to survey Manhattan's streets; Goerck and Mangin had each submitted individual proposals to

5047-508: The corridor was restricted to residential usage. This prompted the New York City Planning Commission to consider rezoning that part of the street in early 1950. Following opposition from existing residents, the commission rejected the rezoning. Historically, West 59th Street ran from Ninth/Columbus Avenues to Columbus Circle as well. In 1954, that city block of 59th Street was decommissioned to make way for

5150-425: The cost of keeping the streets in repair. Beginning in 1803, the Council started to condemn streets which served no public purpose, and, importantly, took responsibility for building streets, which heretofore had been done by individual property owners. The first efforts at putting a grid onto Manhattan in some form came from private developers. In the early 1750s, Trinity Church laid out a small neighborhood around

5253-414: The council could not agree on a solution, and passed the buck, again, to the state legislature. With the Commissioners threatening to resign if something was not done about the "vexatious interruptions", the legislature acted in 1809 with a law providing that if the needed actions to perform the survey could not be performed "without cutting trees or doing damages" and "reasonable notice" was to be provided by

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5356-465: The creation of new streets, the Council rarely did so, independent of the actions of the various landowners who developed their property and ran streets through their projects as they saw fit, which were approved after the fact by the Council. Its first effort to do so came in June 1785 as part of the Council's attempt to raise money by selling property. The Council owned a great deal of land, primarily in

5459-536: The cross streets was fixed at the boundaries of 5-acre (2.0 ha) parcels into which the land had previously been divided. The basepoint for the cross streets was First Street: this was a short and inconspicuous street, which still exists, and originally ran from the intersection of Avenue B and Houston Street to the intersection of the Bowery and Bleecker Street . Peretz Square , a small, narrow triangular park bounded by Houston Street, 1st Street , and First Avenue,

5562-400: The crosstown blocks was irregular. The distance between First and Second Avenues was 650 feet (200 m), while the block between Second and Third Avenues was 610 feet (190 m). The blocks between Third and Sixth Avenues were 920 feet (280 m), while the blocks between the avenues from Sixth to Twelfth were 800 feet (240 m). Lexington and Madison Avenues were added after

5665-404: The day they intended to leave. Why they did not send word earlier, why Hassler did not press on at some point before October, and why the Common Council never thought to inquire of the whereabouts of their missing surveyor is not known. In any case, by October, the surveying season for 1806 was over, or close to it. Hassler soon received a federal appointment – he would eventually head

5768-524: The east is known as Central Park South . Central Park South is largely bidirectional, except for the short block between Grand Army Plaza and Fifth Avenue, which is one-way eastbound. The block between Sixth Avenue and Grand Army Plaza contains a dedicated lane for westbound equestrian traffic. Entry into Central Park can be made at the Scholars' Gate at Fifth Avenue, the Artists' Gate at Sixth Avenue ,

5871-421: The edges of the estate the grid broke down in order to connect up with existing streets. The Bayard streets still exist as the core of SoHo and part of Greenwich Village : Mercer, Greene, and Wooster Streets, LaGuardia Place / West Broadway (originally Laurens Street), and Thompson, Sullivan , MacDougal , and Hancock Streets, although the last has been subsumed by the extension of Sixth Avenue . At about

5974-405: The grid a physical reality – although city surveyor William Bridges (see below ) also submitted a proposal to do the work  – and Randel began this work even before the Commissioners' Plan was announced publicly. A provisional contract between the Council and Randel was signed on December 31, the permanent contract being conditional on Randel delivering the final maps of

6077-548: The grid to Piraeus , Rhodes , and other cities in Greece. The grid plan, or "Hippodamian plan", was also utilized by the Ancient Romans for their fortified military encampments, or castra , many of which evolved into towns and cities; Pompeii is the best-preserved example of Roman urban planning using the gridiron system. In France, England, and Wales, castra evolved into bastides , agricultural communities under

6180-480: The gridiron concept from the beginning  – in Philadelphia's case, William Penn specified the city's orthogonal pattern when he founded it in 1682, although its 400-foot (120 m) blocks turned out to be too large, encouraging the creation of intermediate streets, while James Oglethorpe 's Savannah, with its significantly smaller blocks, was not conducive to large-scale development, restricting

6283-513: The law, shewing [ sic ] all the streets which to be laid out   ..." Randel then spent a considerable amount of time in December meeting with Morris and perhaps the other Commissioners at Morris' estate in the Bronx, during which time it appears that the grid plan was born. At Morris' suggestion, the Common Council hired Randel to actually do the extensive work involved in making

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6386-555: The lettered avenues were "incapable of use as thoroughfares to and from the City" and could not "be considered as avenues in the proper Sense of the term." On the Upper East Side , Avenue B reappears as East End Avenue ; principally residential in character, it runs only from East 79th Street to East 90th Street through the Yorkville neighborhood. It was called Avenue B under the original Commissioners' Plan of 1811, but

6489-523: The long-established Bayard family, relatives of Peter Stuyvesant , hired surveyor Casimir Goerck to lay out streets in the portion of their estate west of Broadway, so the land could be sold in lots. About 100 acres (40 ha) accommodated 7 east–west and 8 north–south streets, all 50 feet (15 m) wide, making up 35 whole or partial rectilinear blocks of 200 feet (61 m) width from east to west, and between 350 feet (110 m) and 500 feet (150 m) long north to south – although near

6592-437: The middle of the island, away from the Hudson and East Rivers, as a result of grants by the Dutch provincial government to the colony of New Amsterdam. Although originally more extensive, by 1785 the council held approximately 1,300 acres (530 ha), or about 9% of the island. Unfortunately, the land was not only of such poor quality – being either rocky and elevated or swampy and low-lying – that it

6695-420: The most famous use of the grid plan or "gridiron" and is considered by many historians to have been far-reaching and visionary. Since its earliest days, the plan has been criticized for its monotony and rigidity, in comparison with irregular street patterns of older cities, but in recent years has been viewed more favorably by urban planners. There were a few interruptions in the grid for public spaces, such as

6798-475: The most practical and cost-effective, as "straight-sided and right-angled houses are the most cheap to build and the most convenient to live in." In order for the Commissioners to determine what the future of New York City's streets would be, they needed to know the precise location of the current streets, which meant that most of the four years they were given for their task would be taken up with surveying Manhattan island. The Commission's first chief surveyor

6901-455: The natural environment to fit the requirements of republican authority." Even though "[t]he Commissioners wrote as if all they cared about was protecting the investments of land developers and maintaining government-on-the-cheap ... the plan ... however, served to transform space into an expression of public philosophy," which emphasized equality and uniformity. "In a city shaped by rectangular blocks, all structures and activities would look roughly

7004-404: The new King's College – which would later become Columbia University  – in rectangular blocks. However, because the plan required landfill in the Hudson River , which would not happen until much later, the streets were never laid down. In 1762, the church had streets surveyed and laid down in a rectilinear grid in the "Church Farm" – which ran from what

7107-475: The numbered east–west streets of the later plan. Goerck took two years to survey the 212 lots which encompassed the entire Common Lands. Again, impeded by tools and topography, Goerck's work was somewhat less than precise. In 1808, John Hunn, the city's street commissioner would comment that "The Surveys made by Mr. Goerck upon the Commons were effected through thickets and swamps, and over rocks and hills where it

7210-434: The old New York Athletic Club building, and Gainsborough Studios were built on Central Park South. This was followed by 100 Central Park South , a new New York Athletic Club building, Barbizon Plaza , Hampshire House , Essex House , Hotel St. Moritz , and 240 Central Park South between World Wars I and II. After World War II, an increasing number of stores opened on the south side of Central Park South, even though

7313-607: The one street in Manhattan oriented closely to true east and west. Despite the fact that the city's charters over the decades – the Dongan Charter (1686), the Cornbury Charter (1708) and the Montgomerie Charter (1731) – supported by specific laws passed by the province or state in 1741, 1751, 1754, 1764, 1774 and 1787, gave the city's Common Council full powers over

7416-469: The original plan. The shorter blocks near the Hudson and East River waterfronts was purposeful, as the Commissioners' expected that there would be more development there at a time when water-based transportation was still significant. The Commission expected that street frontage near the piers would be more valuable than the landlocked interior, the waterfront being the location of commerce and industry of

7519-602: The plan as "the new Map of the City" for four years, even publishing it by subscription, until political machinations perhaps engineered by Aaron Burr acting through the city's street commissioner, Joseph Browne Jr., brought it into disrepute. Burr – the political enemy of Mangin's mentor Alexander Hamilton – may have been upset that the design of New York's City Hall had gone to Mangin and his partner John McComb Jr. , and not to Burr's candidate, Benjamin Henry Latrobe , but for whatever reason,

7622-448: The plan was disavowed by the Council, and was no longer to be considered "the new Map of the City." The Council ordered that copies which had already been sold be bought back if possible, and that a label warning of inaccuracies be placed on any additional copies sold. They stopped short at totally destroying the plan, but, still, neglect may have had the same effect: the original 6-foot (1.8 m) square engraved map has disappeared, and of

7725-529: The plan, which he did on March 22, 1811; the maps were filed by the Council's clerk on April 2, two days before the Commission's legal deadline. Randel's survey of the entire island – 11,400 acres (4,600 ha)  – had begun in 1808 and was completed in 1810, and he now prepared the drafts of the new grid without regard to the topography of the land. The three maps were large, almost nine feet in length when connected together. Commissioner Simeon De Witt said of Randel's work that it

7828-675: The rapid expansion of towns and cities during the early industrial revolution developed using a grid street plan such as Whitehaven in Cumbria. In British Empire cities, it necessitated the adoption of new neoclassical urban plans in particular the Scottish Enlightenment 'New Towns' of Edinburgh of 1767 and Glasgow of 1781 were particularly influential in the English-speaking countries. In some European cities, such as Amsterdam and Paris , destruction of parts of

7931-486: The same time as the Bayards, Petrus Stuyvesant, the great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant, intended to lay out a small grid of streets, nine by four, to create a village on his estate. The orientation of the streets was to be true north–south and east–west, not shifted, as Manhattan Island is, 29 degrees east of true north. The only street to actually be laid was the grid's central east–west axis, Stuyvesant Street, which remains

8034-613: The same. Individual distinctions, whether cultural, charitable, economic, or whatever, would have to find their place within a fixed, republican spatial organization." The Commissioners published their plan in March 1811 in the form of an eight-foot (2.4 m) map – redrawn by the otherwise little known William Bridges from Randel's original, and engraved by Peter Maverick  – with an accompanying 54-page pamphlet. The grid had 12 primary 100 feet (30 m) wide north–south avenues and numerous cross streets arranged in

8137-455: The smaller versions only less than a dozen are extant, none in good condition. Nevertheless, despite the Council's official disavowal of Mangin's layout of future streets, as the city grew the Mangin–Goerck Plan became the de facto reference for where new streets were built, and when the Commissioners' Plan was revealed in 1811, the area of the plan which the public had been warned was inaccurate and speculative had been accepted wholesale by

8240-474: The specified dimensions was the creation of approximately 2000 long, narrow blocks. Except in the north and south ends of the island, the avenues would begin with First Avenue on the east side and run through Twelfth Avenue in the west. In addition, where the island was wider, there would be four additional lettered avenues running from Avenue A eastward to Avenue D . Some of the avenues, such as Twelfth Avenue, ran through land that did not as yet exist, but

8343-400: The state legislation which created the Commission also authorized the city to extend its boundaries 400 feet (120 m) into the Hudson and East Rivers, so the land required for these new streets would eventually be created. Broadway, an existing road, was not included in the 1811 plan, and was added to the grid later. The plan also called for 155 orthogonal cross streets. The location of

8446-642: The streets remained – although a new street, Grand Street, was laid through the central square. The north–south streets of the De Lancey grid become the core north–south streets of the Lower East Side : Chrystie , Forsyth , Eldridge, Allen , Orchard and Ludlow Streets, and the grid became the pattern for additional streets laid out in the area. The third instance of a privately developed grid in New York City came in 1788, when

8549-407: The surveying season for that season over and only four months left before they were to report out their plan, they seemed to have arrived at a decision. On that date, Morris informed the Common Council that although more work was left to be done "on the ground", the Commission itself had "completed their work" and would be able to make a report that would "compl[y] substantially, if not literally within

8652-666: The time, and so it would be to everyone's benefit to place avenues closer together at the island's edges. Although varied, the width of all the avenues were sufficient to accommodate large numbers of horse-drawn mass transportation vehicles such as the omnibus , which would soon appear in Manhattan in the late 1820s, but the precursors to which had been operating in Paris as early as 1662, operated by philosopher Blaise Pascal . 59th Street (Manhattan) 40°45′51″N 73°58′23″W  /  40.7642908724°N 73.9730390°W  / 40.7642908724; -73.9730390 59th Street

8755-461: The tip of the island and using landfill to regularize its waterfront. He placed a number of street grids on land that was, at the time, agricultural or undeveloped. The grids, which had different baselines, met up, and there Mangin placed parks and public spaces. He extended the Bayard grid northward, the De Lancey grid to the east and north, and the true north–south/east–west streets of Stuyvesant into

8858-918: The use of the gridiron in newly built communities, and the results can be seen in St. Augustine, Florida ; Santa Fe and Albuquerque , New Mexico ; and in San Diego , San Francisco , and Los Angeles in California . The French also built the nucleus of New Orleans, Louisiana on a grid, in part influenced by the Spanish Law of the Indies, which provided numerous practical models in the New World to copy from. Although some English colonial cities, such as Boston , had streets that adhered more to natural topography and happenstance, others, such as Savannah, Georgia , Baltimore , and Philadelphia had been built to

8961-421: Was Charles Frederick Loss, who, like Mangin and the deceased Goerck, was an officially recognized city surveyor, a position he received contingent on becoming a naturalized American citizen. Unfortunately Loss did not appear to be a very competent surveyor, as several of his ventures had serious errors, which eventually resulted in his being relieved of his position in 1811. Loss exhibited the same lack of ability as

9064-529: Was almost impossible to produce accuracy of mensuration." Often the streets intended to intersect at right angles would not quite do so. Still, Goerck's work in surveying the Common Lands was the basis for the Commissioners' Plan, as explained by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission : "The Commissioner's Plan borrowed heavily from Goerck's earlier surveys and essentially expanded his scheme beyond

9167-408: Was also carefully noting the locations of the three north–south roads that Goerck had laid down as part of his survey of the Common Lands. Goerck had not placed the lots and roads in the Common Lands in the context of the overall island, and this Randel did, thus allowing the Commissioners to know where, exactly, Goerck's Common Lands grid was. This was important, because it could serve as a template for

9270-542: Was described by the Commission that created it as combining "beauty, order and convenience." The plan originated when the Common Council of New York City , seeking to provide for the orderly development and sale of the land of Manhattan between 14th Street and Washington Heights , but unable to do so itself for reasons of local politics and objections from property owners, asked the New York State Legislature to step in. The legislature appointed

9373-455: Was greeted with widespread hostility from property owners, but the Commission's authority was explicit. They held, for instance, the "exclusive power" to close streets that interfered with their plan, a plan which landowners as well as the mayor, the Common Council and all other citizens of the city had no choice but to accept. At the meetings of the Commission, which were infrequent and usually not attended by all three men, their primary concern

9476-468: Was instructed to make lots of about 5 acres (2.0 ha) each – precision in such matters was not to be expected with the available surveying tools, given the topography and ground cover of the Common Lands ;– and to lay out roads to access the lots. He completed his task in December, only six months later, creating 140 lots of varying sizes. Although not laid out in

9579-527: Was invented – from where it may have spread to Ancient Greece . The Greek city of Miletus was rebuilt after destruction by the Persians on a grid plan, with Hippodamus  – often called "the father of European urban planning "  – as the local originator of the rectilinear grid system for the city centered on the agora , a concept he probably did not invent, but had heard about from elsewhere. Hippodamus went on to spread

9682-550: Was made "with an accuracy not exceeded by any work of the kind in America." Randel himself would later write that "The time within which the Commissioners were limited by the Statute to make their Plan of the streets, avenues, and public places on Manhattan [was] barely sufficient to enable them to comply with the letter , although not fully with the spirit , of the Statute." (italics in original) If it should be asked why

9785-627: Was not envisioned until the 1850s. The numbering was also extended through Manhattan and the Bronx. The gridiron layout of a town or city is not new, it is "the most pervasive city design on earth" and can be found in "Italy and Greece, in Mexico, Central America, Mesopotamia, China [and] Japan." It existed in the Old and New Kingdoms of Ancient Egypt , in the Indus Valley cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro – where many historians claim it

9888-426: Was not named the president of the Commission, but acted as such. A majority of Commissioners was required to make decisions. The Commissioners were authorized to be paid $ 4 a day for their work (equivalent to $ 83 in 2023)  – although Morris and Rutherfurd, both rich men, waived their fees  – and were empowered to enter onto private property in the daytime to undertake their duties; this

9991-483: Was not suitable for farming or residential estates, it was also difficult to get to because of both the lack of roads and access to waterways. To divide the Common Lands, as they were called, into sellable lots, and to lay out roads to service them, the Council hired Casimir Goerck , one of a handful of officially approved "city surveyors", to survey them. Goerck, who was related to the Roosevelt family by marriage,

10094-530: Was noted for his work on a topographic survey of Switzerland, had immigrated to Philadelphia in 1805, two years after the French invaded his country and made his work there impossible. Through the auspices of a merchant friend with friends in New York, in the spring of 1806, the Common Council commissioned Hassler to make an accurate map of Manhattan Island, which could be used as a basis for planning future development; it would be Hassler's first substantial contract in

10197-412: Was resonant with the political values of the country, which only recently gained independence from Great Britain. According to Hartog, the grid was: "...   the antithesis of a utopian or futuristic plan." It extolled ordinary everyday life, and emphasized that "government ought not to act in such a way as to create inequality of special privilege." The Plan's "hidden agenda" was "[t]he reconstruction of

10300-474: 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 on its march uptown until the current day. It has been called "the single most important document in New York City's development," and the plan has been described as encompassing the "republican predilection for control and balance ... [and] distrust of nature". It

10403-519: Was the present plan adopted in preference to any other, the answer is, because, after taking all circumstances into consideration, it appeared to be the best; or, in other and more proper terms, attended with the least inconvenience.      – The Commission, from their "Remarks" The format chosen by the Commissioners was a rectilinear grid, or "gridiron": straight streets and avenues intersecting each other at right angles. Legal historian Hendrick Hartog writes that their choice

10506-467: Was to deliver the map by May 1808. The Commissioners' replacement as chief engineer and surveyor, John Randel Jr. , took over the position in June 1808; the project would occupy him for most of the next 13 years. Randel had been apprenticed to De Witt, and when he became an assistant surveyor in De Witt's office, he interpreted the field reports of other surveyors to draft maps based on them of land in

10609-463: Was what kind of layout the new area of the city should have, a rectilinear grid such as was used in Philadelphia ; New Orleans ; Savannah, Georgia ; and Charleston, South Carolina , or a more complex system utilizing circles, arcs or other patterns, such as the plan Pierre Charles L'Enfant had used in laying out Washington, D.C. In the end, the Commission decided on the gridiron as being

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