This painting is held by the Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. At the time, imposing a grid of 2,028 blocks on land that was largely rural might have seemed outlandish, but strong leadership from city elders like De Witt and smart political maneuvering pushed the plan through. 1804, one of the three commissioners behind the 1811 grid plan. More than 120 teams from 22 countries submitted proposals, from which a jury of architects and curators selected eight they believed offer the most insightful and provocative ideas for Manhattan’s grid.Ĭlick the images below to see and read about the eight selected ideas:Ī portrait of Simeon De Witt, ca. To answer this question, the Architectural League and the museum, along with media sponsor Architizer, issued an international call for ideas that invited architects and urban designers from around the world to use the grid as a springboard for thinking about the city’s future. How might designers, developers and city officials continue to modify the grid in response to the challenges and opportunities that New York faces now and into the future? That the grid was able to accommodate them all while sustaining its essential character is a true testament to its flexibility, which Ballon has described as a “living framework, which enabled the city to grow and evolve over time.” To wit, the following were all later city additions unanticipated by the grid’s creators in 1811: Central Park and the superblock housing developments of 1960s urban renewal Madison and Lexington avenues the automobile and the subway skyscrapers the water system and the electricity grid zoning resolutions and preservation districts. Composite image: Photos courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York and Flickr/U2wanderer.Īmong its many keen insights, “The Greatest Grid” reveals how remarkably flexible Manhattan’s street grid has been over two centuries. The image above is an oil painting from 1885 that imagines what the junction of Bowery and Broadway, the area that became Union Square, looked like during colonial times. One of the strengths of the grid has been its flexibility to accommodate irregular spaces over time.
GRIDDED PLAN FULL
A tour de force of historical research that constitutes the first sustained examination of this subject, “The Greatest Grid” tells the story of a young New York that is full of optimism about its future and unafraid to take on bold challenges. The first of these exhibitions, “ The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011,” curated by architectural historian Hilary Ballon, traces the creation, implementation and evolution of the plan from 1811 through the 20th century. That’s why the Museum of the City of New York and the Architectural League of New York have organized a pair of exhibitions about its past and future. The grid is definitely worth celebrating - without it, New York might not be the great city it has become. The adoption four years later of the Commissioners’ Plan established the grid of 12 north-south avenues and 155 east-west streets that, though it would take most of the 19th century to build, continues to fundamentally shape life in New York.īut is something so infrastructural, something that’s taken for granted every day, really worth celebrating? In 1807, frustrated by years of uncontrolled development and a decade of public health epidemics attributed to lower Manhattan’s cramped and irregular streets, New York City’s Common Council (the predecessor to today’s City Council) petitioned the State Legislature to develop a street plan for Manhattan above Houston Street, at that time a rural area of streams and hills populated by a patchwork of country estates, farms and small houses. It’s all thanks to Manhattan’s legendary street grid, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year. New Yorkers take it for granted that we can say things like “meet me at 85th Street and Third Avenue” and know that regardless of whether someone has been to that intersection, they will easily be able to get there. Price: Suggested admission is $10 for adults, $6 for seniors and students. Where: The Museum of the City of New York
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