So, I know about the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811, which laid out Manhattan’s grid above 14th Street, pretty much as we know it today. But I’ve never quite been able to discern the rate at which the plan was realized; ie, how quickly did the rural areas of Manhattan get swallowed up by Streets and Avenues?
The design of Central Park in the 1850s gives me some clue; residents of small villages in the area were evicted to make way for the park, indicating that perhaps the grid hadn’t quite extended that far north yet. Or had it? At what point in history could someone have stood where I am on West 70th Street and observed the street clearly delineated in some way? Was it decades of encroaching eminent domain, or a couple of fell swoops? Did it happen in a totally linear, Northward fashion? And at what point was Manhattan below 155th street (the scope of the 1811 plan) 100% urban?
Feel free to point me toward some reading material on- or offline; I’m fascinated by this stuff, but I feel woefully uninformed.
Actually, the book above probably isn’t what you want (although it’s fascinating). The only update I could find for Manhattan’s development was for the 1870s, when the horse-drawn streetcars were running up the East Side and the West Side was sparsely settled around the 70s and “cow pasture” in the 100s. Harlem was just being touched by the streetcar lines, but was described as “cottages.” So the whole area south of 155th Street was not developed until after that. When I lived on Riverside Drive in the 140s, it seems like most of the grand old buildings up that road were built 1910-1920. Hope this helps.
There is, however, a very interesting section of the book that explains why you can find yourself at the corner of West 4th and West 12th.
If you want a deep and serious treatment of this topic, the book you want to read is *Empire City * by David Scobey. I warn you, it’s not a light read, but it’s shorter than Gotham. (There is at least one other NYC history book called Empire City, so be sure to get the right one.)
FYI, do not use the placement of Central Park as a benchmark for uptown development in the 1850’s. Central Park was in the (largely) undeveloped “northern” hinterland when it was begun.
Actually, I sought out the book, and found some relevant info on pages 421-422. In short, it says that any “previously laid-out streets” that didn’t fit the 1811 plan were closed, and buildings were demolished (with the notable exception of Stuyvesant Street ). Most of the grid started out as rugged wilderness, and in the decade after the plan was approved, the city placed “1,549 yard-high white-marble markers at imagined intersections, each engraved with the number of its street-to-be.”
So, to answer my own question, I could have figured out I was at Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and 70th street sometime shortly after 1811. In the 1840s, I’d be neighbors with Edgar Allen Poe, who lived on a farm at Bloomingdale and 84th. (Now that I think of it, that’s 2 blocks away from the bookstore I was in today.)
The chapter you cited helps flesh it out, too. The East Side was easier and cheaper to develop, terrain-wise. A photo on page 924 shows West End Ave and 94th Street still looking very farm-like in 1889.
Anyway, that’s the stuff I was able to gather just by skimming the book. Since it passed my “aching back from standing and reading in the bookstore for too long” test, I went ahead and bought it. I’m sure all sorts of fascinating stuff awaits. Thanks, Ichbin Dubist!
ETA: Just saw your response, stuyguy. Great, another trip to the bookstore. Thanks for the suggestion.
More gold. From 1866: “There are about 200 miles of paved streets in the Metropolis, extending to Forty-fourth street; exclusive of projected streets not yet paved, over 100 streets more.”
Supposedly Mike Wallace is writing the sequel to bring it up to date. It’s been eons, though. When your back feels better, try some reps with Caro’s book on Robert Moses.
More data points: the Dakota was considered remote when it was built in 1884. The linked article has pictures of it all by itself.
They were not, although I have it on good authority that one still remains, in a concealed location within Central Park. I will say no more.
While the intersection markers are gone – not all of them were on the marble monuments, btw, some were merely bolts embedded on rock outcroppings – the marvelously detailed maps that were created simultaneously still exist. They are known as the Randel Farm Maps, named for John Randel, the chief surveyor who placed the monuments and bolts while he measured and recorded the features of Manhattan Island in detail from roughly 1811 to 1820. They are glorious documents to see in person.
Maybe yes, and maybe no. The intersections of Broadway (aka Bloomingdale Road, aka the Boulevard) and 70th Street and Broadway and 84th Street in the 1840s probably differed somewhat from today’s intersections of the same names. In the 1860s the Central Park Commission was granted the authority to plan the Upper West Side. Among other things, they proposed straightening Broadway, which swayed and twisted up the west side of the island. In the 1870s, their proposal on paper was made reality on the ground. The old intersections are probably a block or two east or west of their current locations.
FWIW, the Central Park Commission also planned the island above 155 Street – an area that the original Commissioners’ Plan intentionally left blank.
Shroud: If you contact me off the board, I’d be happy to supply you with much more information about the grid and its evolution. There’s too much to post here, and some of it I don’t feel comfortable sharing online.
Thanks for the suggestion.