June 18, 2020 • 45 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and
this is Stuff You Should Know another in our Endless
Annals of New York City edition. That's right. Uh, this
(00:25):
is pretty interesting episode, I think. And my favorite part
about it this was Dave rus Are one of our writers.
I'll put this together and Dave, Uh, it's clearly annoyed
about this whole thing, And I think it's hysterical how
many times he gets annoyed by the laziness of the commission.
(00:48):
I have to say I agree with Dave two. I
was annoyed by it as well. I think, yeah, it's
it's always annoying when you see somebody like have a
great opportunity and just pee it away, you know what
I'm mean. Yeah, And we should also point out Dave
got a lot of his information from a really wonderful
book called A City on a Grid colon How New
(01:09):
York Became New York by Gerald Uh Keppel, not Gerald McCraney.
Different Gerald, right or is it Copple? I think it's Keppel.
If it's Koe. That's what I was going with, was Keppel. Yeah,
I'm gonna get this book though. This is uh, this
is right at male because you know, I'm obsessed with
the history and the sort of formation of New York
(01:29):
City as we know it today. Yeah, where'd you get
the idea for this episode? Just my constant desire to
learn about Mannahatta and how that became eventually Manhattan that
we know and love. I'm just fascinated by. I love it.
I love everything about it. This is definitely a big
chapter in it because what we're talking about is the
(01:49):
plan called the Commissioner's Plan of eighteen eleven that basically
laid out Manhattan as we know and understand and love
it today. Everything north of Austin Street, I should say. Yeah,
And here's sort of a quick primer is Manhattan above
Houston is almost a perfect grid. Um Broadway kind of
(02:12):
screws everything up, but you know, great Street, but it's
it's just broadways, Like I'm not following any rules, so
I'm going to confuse people. But aside from that, it's
it's pretty much a grid of eleven numbered avenues that
run north to south generally speaking. Then you've got Lexington
Park and Madison Avenues and then two hundred and this
(02:35):
was at the time numbered streets running roughly east to west.
And if you want to get a little more granular
than that, um, the southernmost street in the East Villages
East first, as you would imagine, the northernmost is two
D Street as we live in Breathe today and in
(02:55):
wood Well, that's on the island technically in Manhattan, And
if you're talking about the borough, it goes up to
two hundred and twenty seven, I believe, right, And if
you want to go through the Bronx, you go all
the way up to to sixty three. Man, that's crazy. Um,
you've got so many streets. That's so many streets. You've
(03:17):
got a two hundred and sixty streets. You've got an
east and West signifier which says and this is sort
of a dummies guy to getting around New York for
the first time too. If you broke your smartphone, and
you also don't want to walk around just staring at
your smartphone the whole time, No, you're gonna miss a lot. Yeah,
so try and get a little into it a field,
because it's really easy to get around. If you know
(03:38):
this stuff, um, east and west will signify whether you're
in east or west of Fifth Avenue. And then uh,
here's a little trick to odd numbers street. Uh, streets
run west, even numbers streets run east. So if you
come out of a subway and you and you know
(03:59):
which a north, south, east and west are, then you
will never do the thing that I always do and
walk in the wrong direction trying to go up or down. Yeah,
because that's the thing. Like, if you know what direction
you're facing, and you know where you're trying to go
and where you are right now, you can basically make
make your way anywhere in Manhattan above. Yeah. And if
(04:22):
you're like me and you have no idea ever what's north, south,
east and west? And you either I had an easy
time in l A because l A has uh the sun,
well they have they have that, but they also have
um geographical landmarks that make it super easy to tell
which way north and like the Hollywood Sign and the
hills and stuff like that. Is that real? Is the
(04:44):
Hollywood Sign real? What do you mean? Is it real? Okay? Um?
So that makes a lot easier in New York when
I come out there, all those big tall buildings. I
never know. I can never come out and say like,
well that's north. Um. But if you know that stuff,
and you know that the even numbered streets run east
the odd ones run west, then you can you won't
(05:07):
walk in the wrong direction for a block and then
get there like I do and go, oh, we should
have gone the other way. Yeah, because depending on what
direction you're walking, if you're walking north or south, going
the wrong direction and a block isn't that bad. But
if you're going east or west, it's real bad because
very long blocks going east to west. And that's all
part of that Commissioner's plan that was laid out in
eighteen eleven. And on the one hand, you know, we've
(05:31):
kind of hit upon the pros and the cons of it.
That it's easy to get around, which is really saying
something because New York is absolutely huge. But you could
make it from one end to the other without a map,
just knowing that that it's on a grid and how
the grids laid out, um, even roughly. But the problem
is it's on a grid, and a grid is one
(05:52):
of the least organic shapes around and because this grid
stretches over almost all of Manhattan. Most of Manhattan for sure. UM,
it's viewed by a lot of people is kind of
soulless and canyon esque because you're just totally surrounded almost
constantly by big, imposing buildings, all at these right angles,
(06:13):
which it feels like a very built environment. UM. And
until Central Park came along, which we did an episode
on in what the eighteen fifties or sixties like that
was it? That was New York. There was nothing but
that built environment. I got a few more of my things, Okay,
let's have them. But uh, Manhattan's about thirteen and a
(06:34):
half miles long. And then so this grid makes sense.
But then once you get north of fifty ninth Street,
you start to get like Atlanta does, and a road
will just change names out of nowhere. Atlanta is very
famous for that, and people get very confused. Here. It's
very confusing also because the road will will change names,
but one of the names, Peachtree, will still be there,
(06:54):
but it's a totally different street and it does not
help things. That's right, So north fifty nine UM avenues
on the west side change names, but avenues on the
east side do not. So eight becomes Central Park West
ninth becomes Columbus Avenue becomes Amsterdam Avenue, and eleventh becomes
West End Avenue. What about Avenue of the America's well,
(07:17):
that's sixth, right or is that seventh? Oh man? I thought,
I think it's sixth. I think, but that's really not
a name change. That's just that's something that that tourists
call it, right. I remember you making fun of me
when I call it that? Did I really? Yeah? That
sounds a good right, it was really jarring. Uh. And
then to get people really confused between third and fifth Avenue,
(07:42):
there are three avenues, uh, instead of what you would
think would be one, because Lexington Park and Madison fall
between those YEA, and then south of twenty three you've
got your lettered avenues A, B, C, and D, which
is alphabet city. So you would need to have to
pull out a map. You just have to stand in
(08:02):
the middle of New York and listen to the first
like ten minutes of this episode, and you'll find your way,
no problem. All right? Should we get into this? He said,
people don't like the grid. There are there are a
lot of people. Um, I mean, what did Walt Whitman
call it? Uh? Icky? I think now I think he
said he called he called it one perpetual dead flat Yeah,
(08:24):
and streets cutting each other at right angles are certainly
the last things in the world consistent with beauty of situation.
How about this one from Edith Wharton Rectangular New York.
This cramped horizontal gridiron of a town without towers, porticos, fountains,
or perspectives, hide bound in its deadly uniformity of mean ugliness. Yeah,
(08:45):
I like hide bound. That's great. That's a great word.
And mean ugliness definitely captures like a certain sense of
New York, depending on your your mood or mindset, you know. Um.
There's one a guy named Peter Mark Huse who's an
architecture critic. He said that the grid layout of Manhattan
was one of the worst city plans of any major
(09:07):
city in the developed countries of the world. Right, but
some people love it. Some people said it was pragmatic.
Some people said it really accommodated for the one thing
it needed to accommodate for, which was massive growth. Uh.
Let me see here. An architect named Raphael Vin Vinoly
who was I think a modern architect. Not modern, I
(09:29):
just mean current architect, but he may do modern work,
you knows. Uh. He said, the grid is the best
manifestation of American prag mattism, pragmatism in the in the
creation of urban form. And then in Dutch architect name
rim Cool has said that the grid was the most
(09:51):
courageous act of prediction in Western civilization, clearly talking about
the the growth. Yes, but a courage this act. That's
like architect talk, right that right there. So, but for
the most part, from what I understand, and definitely Dave
says the same thing. Um, most New Yorkers, especially born
(10:12):
and raised New Yorkers, we're not happy that that's how
their city is laid out. That there's a lot of
room for improvement. Yeah, your experience too, sure, I mean
Central Park is great. But you know, as we'll find out,
they did not, uh they doesn't didn't really plan for
green spaces, and New York has done their best to
kind of carve them out since then. But you know,
(10:33):
let's let's get into this commission. Well, let's talk about
grids first. Do you want to Yeah, all right, do
you want to take a break and then talk about
the grid story? Yes? Uh? So New York didn't invent
(11:06):
the grid. As much as they liked to boast that
they did, they did not. In fact, a grid layout
of a city. Um. Goes back to that Indus Valley
civilization that for some reason keeps popping up in the
last like year or so. I guess they're going to
make a comeback or something like that. But they've just
been coming out all over the place. Um. But one
(11:27):
of the what was it, chuck, was it? Did they
invent the zipper? I don't think it was a zipper?
What was indigo? There's been there's been a number of them.
But anyway, about at least five thousand years ago, the
Indus Valley civilization was using the grid layout to create
Mohan Joe daro Um, which was a fifty acre city
(11:51):
on a grid. Um. And then shortly after that the
Greek said, I really like this. In fact, there's a
Greek um I think, or mathematician named Hippodamus who's known
as the father of city planning, and he was bully
for grids too. Yeah, if you have a grid that's
still these people still call that the Hippodamian plan, which
(12:14):
is kind of great all these years later to still
get recognized for your grid work. Yeah, if if you're
ever talking to somebody and they refer to a grid
as a Hippodamian plan, that person knows what they're talking about,
or listens to this show that it's one in the
same basically, and you're going to say that, Uh, let
me see. The conquistadors of Spain, they kind of had
(12:34):
a habit of coming in conquering and then having their
template in place to create these grids um as what
they call the law of the Indies, and they would
sort of just come in, set up shop. You got
a town with a big central plaza and then a
grid surrounding that central plaza, right, and they they use
(12:55):
that for everything from Lima to Los Angeles. Um. And
this took me back in my mind to uh, what
was the name of that colonial town in Guatemala that
we visited. Oh, yeah, I know, I know what you mean.
It was wonderful, driving me crazy, It really was wonderful.
(13:15):
Was one of the most beautiful towns I've ever been in.
But it had like a central plaza with a fountain.
It was a much smaller town. But um, now that
I think about, it was laid out on a grid too,
and it was part of that law of the Indies
that you were mentioning that it was just like this
is how you build a town. And apparently the reason
that they they um used that that law like in
(13:37):
town after town after town, that they just basically took
over and said this is ours now it's Spain's. Is
applying a grid was um kind of a metaphor for
applying order and civilization to a formerly disordered in wild
indigenous you know town, which make sense from a colonizer's perspective,
(14:02):
but I'm sure it sucked from the indigenous person's perspective
like everything else. Yeah, that's with this stupid right angle stuff.
So New York City comes along. Um. Philadelphia had been
laid out in a grid by William Penn very deliberately though, um,
and that grid was kind of roomy and spacious because
(14:23):
William Penn did not like the congestion of London. But again,
Philly very much purposeful. Yeah, boy, d C has a
has a kind of a crazy grid. Yeah, but once
you understand it, it makes total sense. Numbers and letters
as in directions. Yeah, but it takes a little more.
It takes more getting used to than New York to
(14:45):
from from my experience and what I understand, Yeah, for sure.
So the Commissioner's Plan of eighteen eleven is really sort
of the demarcation point between what was first New York,
New Amsterdam and then what we now know as Manhattan.
Because anyone who's ever seen almost said Games of New York,
(15:06):
Gangs of New York knows that those were crazy days
down there in Lower Manhattan and things just sort of
sprouted up organically from the river upward as far as
the layout and the design. Uh. And you know, you
can still feel that when you go down to Lower Manhattan,
which is why I love the villages. Now. I think
(15:27):
it's just I mean, I like the simplicity of the grid,
But I think what I love about Lower Manhattan is
how organic it feels. It's a jumble, and I mean
it's a jumble for a reason because those streets largely
follow these original organic paths that the Dutch settlers and
earliest English settlers basically said, oh, we need to get
(15:48):
from the waterfront up you know, to the common lands
or whatever. Here's a good path. And this path happens
to meander around as salt marsh, and we avoid having
to go up a hill by going around this way,
So it's kind of like meandering, and it's it's definitely
locked in time from those streets down there, and um,
Lower Manhattan I like it too, but it is very
(16:10):
easy to be like, are are you sure we're going
in the right direction? Still, it's very easy to get
lost in those because it isn't at all a grid. Yeah.
I've spent enough time in Lower Manhattan now to where
I can landmark it, like it's just familiar enough to
me to where I kind of know, like this block
in that block, so I know where I'm going. Um,
and you mentioned something important. I don't think we've even
(16:31):
kind of said that New York was not all this
just big, one, big flat slab thirteen miles long that
we love today because you can walk forever without ever
getting out of breath. Because it's not Seattle. Um. New
York was swamp land and it had hills and marshes
and creeks and rocks, and it was you know, it
(16:52):
was kind of wild East Coast territory. Yeah. And I
mean the reason that those marshes in the ponds and
hills and stuff aren't there anymore is because of this
eighteen eleven Commissioner's planing. It basically said tear it all down,
fill it all in, build this over it. And they did.
That's the most astounding thing is they did that. They
(17:14):
they you know, as we'll see, they passed a law
that basically said, we're gonna appoint a commission of three people.
They're going to come up with three people, and whatever
they come up with is law. It can't be challenged
in court, and we're not going to back up, back
it up and and change it in any way. And
they really didn't. As bad as the plan was, and
(17:35):
almost every way, they really stuck to it. But the
thing that struck me, I had no idea about this
UM was that the the eighteen eleven Commissioner's Plan was
just a rip off of another earlier surveying map that
basically provided the basis of this of the Commissioner's plan,
not even the basis of it. They were like, oh,
(17:56):
we'll take this as a starting point. They just said,
we'll take this print and put our names on it.
And that's ultimately what happened. Yeah, So pre Revolutionary War UM,
most of Manhattan was in that lower third of the island,
and we got into big time debt because of the
Revolutionary War. And so the city said in the seventeen eighties,
(18:18):
al right, here's what we gotta do. We owned tons
of land, publicly owned land, and all this marshy kind
of ready rocky pondi area. Um, it's not developed. Let's
sell the stuff off and make some dough. It's called
the common Lands, and we need somebody to get in
there and just sort of, you know, survey this and
(18:39):
plot it out out so we know exactly how to
best sell this. Yeah, so they hired a guy named
Kasimir Theodore Girk. That's how I'm going with this. Girk.
Sure it's not a cucumber, it's a gherkin. Do you
remember Mr Cabbagehead from Kids in the Um? Well this
had nothing to do with that, right right. Um. So this,
(19:01):
this surveyor actually went through the common Lands like basically
what we understand is all of Manhattan between Houston and
North Harlem. He just went across and broke it into
five hundred acre parcels. He had a sixty six ft
chain on his um surveying poles, and so he said, well,
(19:23):
I'll just use that as the basic measurement for the
widest streets. Sixty six ft is what it's going to be.
I think he said five acre parcels. Weren't they five acre?
Oh yes, I'm sorry, it's a little bit of a difference.
They were five acre parcels. So that's even more work.
That's a hundred times more work than what I described.
That's right. So, um, he laid him out as a
(19:45):
grid because he wasn't like, this guy wasn't out to
say here's how Manhattan should be built, right right, this
is the best way to promote the future of growth
in Manhattan. No, that was not his charge. His charge
was like, hey, let's just to buy this stuff up
and sell it. Um. He had some interesting constraints. They
had to be five acres, they had to have a
central road that um all of these could sort of
(20:08):
access like fairly easily. And then he had the survey chain.
It's crazy to think about this was one of the
things that informed what is modern New York. His survey
chain was sixty six ft. So he said, all right,
that's how wide the road is. Yeah, exactly, So I
think that was like the the widest road, the central
access road. He called that one Middle and now I
(20:29):
believe that's fifth Avenue is Middle what was originally Middle
Road back in Yeah, that's adorable. So he carved this up,
this place up into um into these plots that are
um two feet on the east and west boundaries of it,
so going up and down, running north south. But if
(20:51):
you're on the plot, it would be on the east
side of the plot, in the west side of the plot,
if that was not confusing before it is now. And
then across Austar the width was nine twenty ft and
that was Those were the plots. He said, here you go,
this is a there's a bunch of them up there.
But I've carved up all of these common lands and
you can start selling them if you want. Yeah. Did
(21:12):
you mention the names of the other two roads? Oh? Yeah,
he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna put two more in
of these sixty six ft wide roads, and uh, he
had some very clever names for them. Yeah. One was Middle, remember,
the one to the east he named East, and the
one to the west he named west. Yeah, which which
makes sense if you're looking at it from if you're
(21:34):
on the Middle Road to the east is the East
road to the west of the West Road, but they
run north south right, man, I hate directions. Uh, And
like you said, that was fifth in the center, so
that's now fourth, fifth and sixth or fourth Avenue, fifth
Avenue and the avenue. You know, you really not supposed
(21:57):
to say that. What a jerk. I believe that said that.
Didn't say it like that, and you just you just
made sure that you wait until the crowd had gathered
and really late into me. I think I remember, was
that our first trip to New York? Probably? Yeah, probably,
That's funny. We've been back a couple of times since
then as a team. Huh. Yeah, I know, I've got
some really great memories of New York. I miss it. Yeah,
(22:20):
it's been a while. One. Well, we will see you again, Yes,
we will New York, don't you, at least I hope.
So there are no guarantees, right, No, we will see
New York again. All right? So, uh do we take
another break? I feel like there's still a lot. There's
still a lot. We should keep going for now, I think.
All right. So in eighteen oh seven, this is when
(22:40):
the New York State Legislature said, you know what we
need to like, we're growing here. It's clear that this
southern tip of Manhattan is just the beginning. So they
passed a bill that they described as an Act of
relative and Act relative to improvements touching uh the laying
out of the streets and roads in the City of
New York and for other purposes, right, which made sense.
(23:03):
But like I said, that this law, they decided to
just vest absolute authority into these three commissioners and said,
we're going to follow whatever they come up with, whatever
they that seems to them most conducive to public good.
We're just going to take on its face that it
is most conducive to public good and just go with it.
(23:24):
That's crazy that it was just three people, and that
it wasn't like ten teams of three people submitting the
best designs that then would be gone over and voted on.
Like took this, No one took it seriously. Weirdly enough,
very so who were these guys? So there are three
commissioners appointed. Whate was Governor Morris. His first name was
Governor Um. He was one of the founding fathers. He
(23:46):
wrote a lot of the Constitution, including the preamble. Um.
He had a peg leg. He lost his leg in
a carriage accident, Um, although there's rumors that it was
something else. But he was known as a dave. It's
an energetic philanderer. But he was apparently a very likable
Benjamin Franklin asked, kind of dude, UM, who seemed to
(24:10):
be fairly smart but had really no understanding of surveying
as far as I can tell. No. Then his nephew
in law, John Rutherford, He's he was a landowner in
New Jersey. In fact, I think the largest landowner in
New Jersey at the time. And by all accounts, it
looks like this was pure nepotism. He was late for meetings,
(24:31):
he was not especially interested, even to the annoyance of
Governor Morris. All the reasons to not exercise nepotism. This
guy brought to the table is one third of this
commission who's figuring out how to lay out the plan
for New York City. That's right. And then the third guy,
Simon Lebon No, no, no, Simeon DeWitt, excuse me. And
(24:53):
this guy actually knew what he was doing. He was
a really very respected, accomplished surveyor, worked with George Washington.
I think it eventually became the UM which I didn't
even know as a thing. Was the official surveyor for
the Continental Army and then the surveyor General of New
York State, right, so he knew what he was doing,
(25:13):
which makes his role all the more shameful that he
didn't say, like, oh, well, we really gotta we gotta
get cracking. It's been three years and we got four
years to do. And maybe he did, though he knows.
He might have been completely run over about these other
two jumps and he just got shouted down. I guess
I don't know. Well, at the very least. Governor Morris
was also one of the founding members of the commission
(25:34):
that created the Erie Canal, which was for a very
long time considered one of the greatest public works projects
in the history of America, certainly in the history of
New York State. UM and that kind of energy and
imagination and drive just did not make it to this
eighteen eleven Commission for the Planning of New York. I
wonder if he I mean, this sounds cynical, but I
(25:56):
wonder if he literally was like, man, that Erie Canal
project really was a big bummer, and how hard we
had to work, and let's just kind of, Hey, look
at these maps that this guy drew to sell off
New York. Let's let's just use those. Yeah. So that's
I mean, that's kind of what they did. Like they
they had four years or they took four years, I'm
(26:16):
not sure how long they had, but they took four
years from eighteen or seven to eighteen eleven um to
turn in their report. Four years of meeting sporadically true,
but they still met over these this four year period.
They came up with an eleven page report to lay
out these thirteen miles in length, not not even square
(26:38):
miles um of Manhattan, these common lands, all the way
from House and Street up to North Harlem. Um. They
came up with eleven pages to explain their map. And
their map really made sense as a grid. But again
they stole the grid from Kazmir Gork. I can't remember
what I called them before. I'm going with Gork now, Okay, sure, um,
(27:02):
but they didn't give them any credit for it whatsoever. No,
I mean, I don't want to go so far as
to call it a tracing project, but you know, they
borrowed pretty heavily, Like the streets and the avenues were
basically the exact same when you know earlier you mentioned
the blocks were two Kirk from Kirk, right, yeah, this
(27:25):
this had the exact same way out and that was
no accident, no, and they were in virtually the same spot.
They did do some stuff, you know, They didn't just
take his his map, like you're saying, and trace it
and call it their own. They made some changes to it.
They created instead of the three middle, east, and West,
they created twelve avenues running north south and not not
(27:48):
true north south, but just you know, for our purposes
north and south. And then they created a hundred and
fifty five numbered streets. But they added this stuff, but
it's sort of just copy pay kind of kind of.
But the big thing is so adding the twelve numbered
avenues was definite change to Girk's corks. I'm never going
(28:09):
to say the same thing twice, But was it? Yeah,
because he only had the three, I know, but he
just had the three and they were like, well, we
need more, so let's just do what he did all
over the place. Sure, sure, okay, all right, you know
what I'm saying, that's fair. Yeah, I'm they're these guys
are definitely not a hill. I'm willing to die on.
So say what you will about them. I think they're
lazy schmos too. And then they took these they took
(28:31):
these cross streets that are formed by the surveying of
these blocks and turn them into numbered streets. So avenues
running north south they were the big ones, D fifty
five numbered streets running east to west. Um. They they
widened the avenues that said they're gonna be a hundred feet. Why.
I guess they had a longer surveying right. Um. And
(28:52):
then they widened some of the cross streets to I
guess ease congestion. Um. I think they widened fifth teen
of them total. Yeah, they I think the other streets
were sixty feet and then fifteen of them went to
a hundred at six one. But why why those particular
(29:21):
ones there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason
because if you notice, they didn't really hit their stride
into keeping them separated by ten ten cross streets until
six street. So there's not really much rhyme or reason
there when they only did that for three of them, right,
for four of them. And then the the streets that
(29:42):
they did choose to widen didn't necessarily make much sense
one way or the other, Like, for example, seventy one
Street was already fairly wide, it was definitely wider than
seventy two Street, but they decided to make seventy two
Street the widened Um the widen cross Street, rather than
seventy one, And apparently no one knows why. The closest
(30:04):
thing I could find is there some record in eighteen
fifty seven of somebody having to remove a big rock
from seventy Street to widen it. But that doesn't even
explain or makes sense, because there was a bunch of
houses that had to be torn down to make seventy
Street widened rather than seventy one, which was already wide
(30:25):
and had almost no houses exactly. So these guys were
just when you start to compile all the evidence, we'll
we'll kind of pay more out. It really seems like
these guys didn't even go to the common Lands, that
maybe they were just working from Girk's map, or if
they did go to the common Lands, they took zero
(30:46):
notes or paid zero attention, and that all of this
came from a place of laziness and ignorance, like not
knowing that seventy two was wider than seventy feet or
vice versa. Um would explain that decision more than anything else. Yeah,
if the other Another example is if you've ever been
on the West side and you feel like, man, these
(31:06):
avenues are big, it's because they are. The avenues on
the east side are spaced at six hundred and fifty
and six hundred and ten ft apart or six hundred
and ten feet apart, and on the west they are
all eight hundred feet apart for no reason, no reason
at all. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Again, it
just it seems like they just phone this in. And
(31:29):
what's even more astounding is that New York's founding father said, Okay,
we're gonna do exactly what you say without questioning it. Yeah,
and actually we kind of do have the reason if
you read closely, and we'll tell you the secret reason.
Right after this U Z FORR. Cliffhanger. It was great.
(32:05):
I'm still a little tense waiting for you to pay
it all. All right, here's the real reason, everyone, and
it all lies in this quote that has pulled from
their commission report. If it should be asked, why the
why was the present plan adopted in preference to any
other The answer is because after taking all circumstances into consideration,
(32:27):
it appeared to be the best or, in other more
proper terms, attended with the least inconvenience. And I think
that's the magic phrase right there, that last phrase attended
with the least inconvenience. And Dave rightfully says, what is obvious,
which is inconvenient for the three commissioners? Yeah, because their
(32:52):
plane was extraordinarily inconvenient for basically everyone involved. Like there
was very from the people who were in charge of
like making this this like building this grid or this
plan to um, the people who are already living in
places that were torn down. Yeah, places were torn down
(33:14):
to to adhere to this plan, this eighteen eleven commission plan.
That's crazy. Um. And again when you start to add
all this stuff up, it does seem like the least
inconvenient for the three commissioners. And the fact that if
that is true and they just included that is kind
of like a cheeky little joke. You know, these guys
(33:35):
are they're not not necessarily burning in hell, but they're
probably in purgatory somewhere. I also have a lot of
respect for that kind of laziness at times. So the
kind that makes fun of itself and public documents, well
just just is that upfront about the fact, like you
know what that didn't really want to work too hard
on this, So here's here it is, right. So uh yeah,
(33:59):
it was very incon in it for everyone but them.
Uh they did this because of the growth population they expected,
so it sort of made sense. But they even got
that wrong. They were wrong by about half of what
they thought the growth rate was going to be. Yeah,
that's that's the thing is. They were saying, like, okay,
this is the this affords um enough population growth to
(34:22):
afford a population greater than any other this side of China,
is how they put it. UM. So they clearly did
have at least growth on their mind, and that if
you build on a grid affords for the most growth.
It's the easiest to build on. Right angled structures are
the easiest to build and settle and live in. UM.
(34:44):
But the thing is is part of that law, that
eighteen o seven law that established the commission charged them
with creating public squares. Although it said uh, in in
size and form and all that and number that the
commissioners see fit. Unfortunately, the commissioners didn't see fit to
make almost any kind of public gathering places, especially green
(35:07):
spaces for um mental health, I guess is what you
would call it. Yeah, and their reasoning is kind of uh,
kind of b s actually, Um, I'm not sure which
one it was. I guess it was Morris that I'm
not gonna read the whole quote, but he basically said, hey, listen,
we don't have the sin River or the Thames winding
(35:27):
through the middle of town, but what we do have
are these two wonderful rivers that just kind of hug Manhattan.
And that's enough because everyone's just gonna go hang out
out the river all the time because it's beautiful and
gorgeous and you can swim in it. And the East
River and the Hudson River will forever be our green space. Basically. Yeah,
(35:49):
Basically that that was that the city had enough, it
didn't need green spaces because of the East and the
Hudson rivers and um. Like, in about forty years people
were like, no, we we need to build Central Park. Yeah,
which was a savior because I think it says here
on their original plan only five percent of the grid
(36:09):
was public green space and two hundred forty of those
acres was a parade ground, yes, which I didn't know
exactly where that was. To you, No, I'm not sure, Um,
I don't know. I mean there, you know, there's Washington
Square Park, there's some cool kind of central promenades and
things like that. And then these you know, New York's
(36:31):
famous for these tiny little slivers of park um kind
of all over the place. But they're they're small, they
are they are very small, especially compared to the surrounding areas.
For sure, in the buildings. That's why the highline was
such a big deal. Yeah, it was a big deal.
And I remember not quite grasping why, you know, I
definitely do, because there's just people need that. People need
(36:53):
green space, they need nature, they need to be like
outside of a built environment, even if it's a built
natural environment, you know what I mean. Yeah, And and
Central Park is amazing and we love it, but that's
a it's a long way if you're in southern Manhattan
to get up there, right right. But basically these guys said,
you don't need to go hang out at the hudsoner
of the East River. It's so wonderful and lovely. So
(37:16):
the um there were a lot of people, like we
said that, we're really unhappy with this. UM. This was
a huge exercise of eminent domain. UM. There are a
lot of people on these lands already. Remember Seneca Village
that was destroyed to create Central Park. UM. They managed
to survive the U eighteen eleven commission. UM. I can't
(37:40):
remember how long that was around, but I want to
say Seneca Village is around for a good fifty years
before it was leveled in the eighteen fifties, so it
would have been around on the common lands during this time. UM.
But they're like you said, about thirty nine or of
homeowners or established buildings had to be torn down. They
(38:00):
filled in ponds, they filled in salt marshes, They completely
altered the ecosystem of stuff that could have been built
around or incorporated had they stopped and thought about how
to do that. They just leveled everything and built a
grid over it. And so a lot of people were
really really unhappy about us, and they were particularly unhappy
that the UM, the city administration was just sticking to
(38:25):
this no matter what. And there were a lot of
lawsuits and all of them from what I understand that
we're unsuccessful. Oh yeah, for about sixty years. There were
tons of lawsuits going on. And uh, I know you
said it was a big imminent domain um act, but
it was I think still the largest act of imminent
domain in New York City. And that includes Central Park
(38:45):
and the uh how we get how they get their water,
which was another good episode. Yeah, because I mean Central
Park was huge, but it's it's just a small sliver
of this larger area. Yeah. Let's this one quote from
landowner Clement clark More. He published a pamphlet um about
the Tyrannical Commissioner's planned and and it it says this
(39:07):
nothing is to be left unmolested, which does not coincide
with the street Commissioner's plummet and level. These are men
who would have cut down the seven hills of Rome
Burn big time. Yep. So um didn't matter though, No,
it really didn't matter. They just went ahead with it
blindly and thoughtlessly and did and again like it did
(39:29):
accommodate growth, although they underestimated the growth. But it took
a little while for this stuff to fill up. Um.
This this plan was delivered in eighteen eleven, but it
wasn't until eighteen seventy five that enough people had started
to move in. That there were more New Yorkers living
above fourteenth Street than they were living below it, because remember,
(39:51):
I mean Lower Manhattan was where it all began, so
that I mean it took a little while to fill in,
and it didn't even necessarily fill in uniform lee. Um.
By that same year in still forty thousand vacant lots
left in this grid plan. And that that was like
about half of the space. Yeah, I love that fact.
(40:12):
That's good. Dave has some nice facts here. At the
end um eighteen sixty nine, the very first apartment building
New York was built, uh, called the stive is Aunt
And they called them I don't even think they called
them apartments. At the time, it was called a French
flat or a French house. But prior to that it
was you know, tenement houses and houses. And so the
(40:35):
stive is ant Is built and everyone thinks it's silly
that anyone would want to live in the same building
as other people, and they called it stive his Aunt's folly.
But um that it was at one forty two East
Eighteenth between Irving Place and Third Uh, and it was
it was a huge hit, Like people made fun of
(40:56):
it in the newspapers, but people signed up to live
there almost immediately. It filled up. It was demoed and
replaced in nineteen sixty but so this is eighteen sixty nine.
Very it didn't take long though. In the Dakota was built,
which still stands today. So apartment buildings kind of came
into fashion, I think, probably do just Stuyvesant's folly. Yeah,
(41:19):
well yeah, I mean it went over so well and
so quickly that it really opened the way for more
and more to be built. Pretty cool. Um. So one
thing that people point to is this Commissioner's plan of
eighteen eleven is just like that same principle or the
same significance that um, the Spanish coming in and and
(41:40):
imposing a grid over an indigenous settlement was somehow taming
the wild or the organic or something like that. There's
a This is the turning point between kind of unplanned organic, um,
much more harmonious, naturally New New York and the planned
(42:03):
modern New York that we know and love today. This
is where it went from one to the other. Um,
almost like flipping a switch. And granted for it took
decades and decades to realize this plan, but Um, when
it when it was delivered, and when it was adopted,
that was that was it? That that change happened and
(42:23):
the transition began. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I think so too.
What else is there for New York? I mean we
figure we got water, we got the subways covered, we've
got Central Park, We've got this. Yeah. Um, let's see,
there can't be much else as far as just the
bones of I know. What I want to do is
maybe how that all the mail in the trash work? Okay?
(42:47):
All right? Yeah, we did the Rocketts once even too,
that's right. I mean we've done a lot of New
York topics, that's true. Or maybe we should have moved
to a different city. Let's start talking about des Moines.
Holy cow, dude, almost simultaneously came out of my mouth. Yes,
it's so weird. It is weird. Uh, it's in the
(43:09):
zeitgeist apparently. Ah, you got anything else? I got nothing else? Okay, Well,
if you want to know more about New York, um
to start reading and then eventually travel there. Uh, they'll
give you the all clear when they're ready. And since
I said that, it's time for listener mail. Hey guys,
my sixteen year old son Owen is probs your biggest
(43:33):
fan for real. He also has a narcolepsy. I appreciate
you taking on this topic and bringing some understanding of
it to the masses. He was diagnosed in his tin
and it affects every single aspect of his life. I
think it has made him wise beyond his years personally
and compassionate to other people with invisible struggles. But it's
still sucks. If you ever want to read or here
(43:55):
firsthand accounts from people with narcolepsy, check out Julie fly
gear that is f L y G A r E
or flag are A. I'm not sure how would you
say that? Oh? I like the I like the one
with flavor. The second who was doing all kinds of
advocacy for people with arcalepsy, including a scholarship foundation. She
(44:15):
founded Project Sleep and Voices of Narcolepsy. She also wrote
a great book about her experiences with being diagnosed during
law school called Wide Awake and Dreaming. When Owen received
his diagnosis, I reached out to her for help. She said,
I want a care package with a book, a T shirt,
wrist bands, a very kind card, etcetera. To let him
know that he's not alone. That is very sweet. I
(44:37):
think she deserves an award for the work she's doing anyway,
a great resource for sure. Thanks for the work that
you do. I mean, could we get an award? You
know we've won a Webby before. I think, well, that's true.
Sometimes it's fun and entertaining, but sometimes and often it's
really important in educational as well. Sincerely, the mom of
your biggest fan. And that is from Brooke. Thanks can,
(45:00):
thanks Ohen for listening. It's really good to hear from you, guys.
Um and Uh, I feel like we should send Ohen
something too. Sure, let's do it, Chuck, we'll figure it out,
all right. We can't be shown up by this fly
Gary person. No no, no, send us, uh, send us
your physical address and we'll mail you something that's right. Um.
And in the meantime, thanks for listening and thanks for
(45:21):
being a fan. Uh and thank you for listening and
thank you for being a fan too. And if you
want to get in touch with this, like Brook did,
you can send us an email, wrap it up spanking
on the bottom and send it off to Stuff podcast
at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you should know is
a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more
(45:41):
podcasts for My Heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and
this is Stuff You Should Know another in our Endless
Annals of New York City edition. That's right. Uh, this
(00:25):
is pretty interesting episode, I think. And my favorite part
about it this was Dave rus Are one of our writers.
I'll put this together and Dave, Uh, it's clearly annoyed
about this whole thing, And I think it's hysterical how
many times he gets annoyed by the laziness of the commission.
(00:48):
I have to say I agree with Dave two. I
was annoyed by it as well. I think, yeah, it's
it's always annoying when you see somebody like have a
great opportunity and just pee it away, you know what
I'm mean. Yeah, And we should also point out Dave
got a lot of his information from a really wonderful
book called A City on a Grid colon How New
(01:09):
York Became New York by Gerald Uh Keppel, not Gerald McCraney.
Different Gerald, right or is it Copple? I think it's Keppel.
If it's Koe. That's what I was going with, was Keppel. Yeah,
I'm gonna get this book though. This is uh, this
is right at male because you know, I'm obsessed with
the history and the sort of formation of New York
(01:29):
City as we know it today. Yeah, where'd you get
the idea for this episode? Just my constant desire to
learn about Mannahatta and how that became eventually Manhattan that
we know and love. I'm just fascinated by. I love it.
I love everything about it. This is definitely a big
chapter in it because what we're talking about is the
(01:49):
plan called the Commissioner's Plan of eighteen eleven that basically
laid out Manhattan as we know and understand and love
it today. Everything north of Austin Street, I should say. Yeah,
And here's sort of a quick primer is Manhattan above
Houston is almost a perfect grid. Um Broadway kind of
(02:12):
screws everything up, but you know, great Street, but it's
it's just broadways, Like I'm not following any rules, so
I'm going to confuse people. But aside from that, it's
it's pretty much a grid of eleven numbered avenues that
run north to south generally speaking. Then you've got Lexington
Park and Madison Avenues and then two hundred and this
(02:35):
was at the time numbered streets running roughly east to west.
And if you want to get a little more granular
than that, um, the southernmost street in the East Villages
East first, as you would imagine, the northernmost is two
D Street as we live in Breathe today and in
(02:55):
wood Well, that's on the island technically in Manhattan, And
if you're talking about the borough, it goes up to
two hundred and twenty seven, I believe, right, And if
you want to go through the Bronx, you go all
the way up to to sixty three. Man, that's crazy. Um,
you've got so many streets. That's so many streets. You've
(03:17):
got a two hundred and sixty streets. You've got an
east and West signifier which says and this is sort
of a dummies guy to getting around New York for
the first time too. If you broke your smartphone, and
you also don't want to walk around just staring at
your smartphone the whole time, No, you're gonna miss a lot. Yeah,
so try and get a little into it a field,
because it's really easy to get around. If you know
(03:38):
this stuff, um, east and west will signify whether you're
in east or west of Fifth Avenue. And then uh,
here's a little trick to odd numbers street. Uh, streets
run west, even numbers streets run east. So if you
come out of a subway and you and you know
(03:59):
which a north, south, east and west are, then you
will never do the thing that I always do and
walk in the wrong direction trying to go up or down. Yeah,
because that's the thing. Like, if you know what direction
you're facing, and you know where you're trying to go
and where you are right now, you can basically make
make your way anywhere in Manhattan above. Yeah. And if
(04:22):
you're like me and you have no idea ever what's north, south,
east and west? And you either I had an easy
time in l A because l A has uh the sun,
well they have they have that, but they also have
um geographical landmarks that make it super easy to tell
which way north and like the Hollywood Sign and the
hills and stuff like that. Is that real? Is the
(04:44):
Hollywood Sign real? What do you mean? Is it real? Okay? Um?
So that makes a lot easier in New York when
I come out there, all those big tall buildings. I
never know. I can never come out and say like,
well that's north. Um. But if you know that stuff,
and you know that the even numbered streets run east
the odd ones run west, then you can you won't
(05:07):
walk in the wrong direction for a block and then
get there like I do and go, oh, we should
have gone the other way. Yeah, because depending on what
direction you're walking, if you're walking north or south, going
the wrong direction and a block isn't that bad. But
if you're going east or west, it's real bad because
very long blocks going east to west. And that's all
part of that Commissioner's plan that was laid out in
eighteen eleven. And on the one hand, you know, we've
(05:31):
kind of hit upon the pros and the cons of it.
That it's easy to get around, which is really saying
something because New York is absolutely huge. But you could
make it from one end to the other without a map,
just knowing that that it's on a grid and how
the grids laid out, um, even roughly. But the problem
is it's on a grid, and a grid is one
(05:52):
of the least organic shapes around and because this grid
stretches over almost all of Manhattan. Most of Manhattan for sure. UM,
it's viewed by a lot of people is kind of
soulless and canyon esque because you're just totally surrounded almost
constantly by big, imposing buildings, all at these right angles,
(06:13):
which it feels like a very built environment. UM. And
until Central Park came along, which we did an episode
on in what the eighteen fifties or sixties like that
was it? That was New York. There was nothing but
that built environment. I got a few more of my things, Okay,
let's have them. But uh, Manhattan's about thirteen and a
(06:34):
half miles long. And then so this grid makes sense.
But then once you get north of fifty ninth Street,
you start to get like Atlanta does, and a road
will just change names out of nowhere. Atlanta is very
famous for that, and people get very confused. Here. It's
very confusing also because the road will will change names,
but one of the names, Peachtree, will still be there,
(06:54):
but it's a totally different street and it does not
help things. That's right, So north fifty nine UM avenues
on the west side change names, but avenues on the
east side do not. So eight becomes Central Park West
ninth becomes Columbus Avenue becomes Amsterdam Avenue, and eleventh becomes
West End Avenue. What about Avenue of the America's well,
(07:17):
that's sixth, right or is that seventh? Oh man? I thought,
I think it's sixth. I think, but that's really not
a name change. That's just that's something that that tourists
call it, right. I remember you making fun of me
when I call it that? Did I really? Yeah? That
sounds a good right, it was really jarring. Uh. And
then to get people really confused between third and fifth Avenue,
(07:42):
there are three avenues, uh, instead of what you would
think would be one, because Lexington Park and Madison fall
between those YEA, and then south of twenty three you've
got your lettered avenues A, B, C, and D, which
is alphabet city. So you would need to have to
pull out a map. You just have to stand in
(08:02):
the middle of New York and listen to the first
like ten minutes of this episode, and you'll find your way,
no problem. All right? Should we get into this? He said,
people don't like the grid. There are there are a
lot of people. Um, I mean, what did Walt Whitman
call it? Uh? Icky? I think now I think he
said he called he called it one perpetual dead flat Yeah,
(08:24):
and streets cutting each other at right angles are certainly
the last things in the world consistent with beauty of situation.
How about this one from Edith Wharton Rectangular New York.
This cramped horizontal gridiron of a town without towers, porticos, fountains,
or perspectives, hide bound in its deadly uniformity of mean ugliness. Yeah,
(08:45):
I like hide bound. That's great. That's a great word.
And mean ugliness definitely captures like a certain sense of
New York, depending on your your mood or mindset, you know. Um.
There's one a guy named Peter Mark Huse who's an
architecture critic. He said that the grid layout of Manhattan
was one of the worst city plans of any major
(09:07):
city in the developed countries of the world. Right, but
some people love it. Some people said it was pragmatic.
Some people said it really accommodated for the one thing
it needed to accommodate for, which was massive growth. Uh.
Let me see here. An architect named Raphael Vin Vinoly
who was I think a modern architect. Not modern, I
(09:29):
just mean current architect, but he may do modern work,
you knows. Uh. He said, the grid is the best
manifestation of American prag mattism, pragmatism in the in the
creation of urban form. And then in Dutch architect name
rim Cool has said that the grid was the most
(09:51):
courageous act of prediction in Western civilization, clearly talking about
the the growth. Yes, but a courage this act. That's
like architect talk, right that right there. So, but for
the most part, from what I understand, and definitely Dave
says the same thing. Um, most New Yorkers, especially born
(10:12):
and raised New Yorkers, we're not happy that that's how
their city is laid out. That there's a lot of
room for improvement. Yeah, your experience too, sure, I mean
Central Park is great. But you know, as we'll find out,
they did not, uh they doesn't didn't really plan for
green spaces, and New York has done their best to
kind of carve them out since then. But you know,
(10:33):
let's let's get into this commission. Well, let's talk about
grids first. Do you want to Yeah, all right, do
you want to take a break and then talk about
the grid story? Yes? Uh? So New York didn't invent
(11:06):
the grid. As much as they liked to boast that
they did, they did not. In fact, a grid layout
of a city. Um. Goes back to that Indus Valley
civilization that for some reason keeps popping up in the
last like year or so. I guess they're going to
make a comeback or something like that. But they've just
been coming out all over the place. Um. But one
(11:27):
of the what was it, chuck, was it? Did they
invent the zipper? I don't think it was a zipper?
What was indigo? There's been there's been a number of them.
But anyway, about at least five thousand years ago, the
Indus Valley civilization was using the grid layout to create
Mohan Joe daro Um, which was a fifty acre city
(11:51):
on a grid. Um. And then shortly after that the
Greek said, I really like this. In fact, there's a
Greek um I think, or mathematician named Hippodamus who's known
as the father of city planning, and he was bully
for grids too. Yeah, if you have a grid that's
still these people still call that the Hippodamian plan, which
(12:14):
is kind of great all these years later to still
get recognized for your grid work. Yeah, if if you're
ever talking to somebody and they refer to a grid
as a Hippodamian plan, that person knows what they're talking about,
or listens to this show that it's one in the
same basically, and you're going to say that, Uh, let
me see. The conquistadors of Spain, they kind of had
(12:34):
a habit of coming in conquering and then having their
template in place to create these grids um as what
they call the law of the Indies, and they would
sort of just come in, set up shop. You got
a town with a big central plaza and then a
grid surrounding that central plaza, right, and they they use
(12:55):
that for everything from Lima to Los Angeles. Um. And
this took me back in my mind to uh, what
was the name of that colonial town in Guatemala that
we visited. Oh, yeah, I know, I know what you mean.
It was wonderful, driving me crazy, It really was wonderful.
(13:15):
Was one of the most beautiful towns I've ever been in.
But it had like a central plaza with a fountain.
It was a much smaller town. But um, now that
I think about, it was laid out on a grid too,
and it was part of that law of the Indies
that you were mentioning that it was just like this
is how you build a town. And apparently the reason
that they they um used that that law like in
(13:37):
town after town after town, that they just basically took
over and said this is ours now it's Spain's. Is
applying a grid was um kind of a metaphor for
applying order and civilization to a formerly disordered in wild
indigenous you know town, which make sense from a colonizer's perspective,
(14:02):
but I'm sure it sucked from the indigenous person's perspective
like everything else. Yeah, that's with this stupid right angle stuff.
So New York City comes along. Um. Philadelphia had been
laid out in a grid by William Penn very deliberately though, um,
and that grid was kind of roomy and spacious because
(14:23):
William Penn did not like the congestion of London. But again,
Philly very much purposeful. Yeah, boy, d C has a
has a kind of a crazy grid. Yeah, but once
you understand it, it makes total sense. Numbers and letters
as in directions. Yeah, but it takes a little more.
It takes more getting used to than New York to
(14:45):
from from my experience and what I understand, Yeah, for sure.
So the Commissioner's Plan of eighteen eleven is really sort
of the demarcation point between what was first New York,
New Amsterdam and then what we now know as Manhattan.
Because anyone who's ever seen almost said Games of New York,
(15:06):
Gangs of New York knows that those were crazy days
down there in Lower Manhattan and things just sort of
sprouted up organically from the river upward as far as
the layout and the design. Uh. And you know, you
can still feel that when you go down to Lower Manhattan,
which is why I love the villages. Now. I think
(15:27):
it's just I mean, I like the simplicity of the grid,
But I think what I love about Lower Manhattan is
how organic it feels. It's a jumble, and I mean
it's a jumble for a reason because those streets largely
follow these original organic paths that the Dutch settlers and
earliest English settlers basically said, oh, we need to get
(15:48):
from the waterfront up you know, to the common lands
or whatever. Here's a good path. And this path happens
to meander around as salt marsh, and we avoid having
to go up a hill by going around this way,
So it's kind of like meandering, and it's it's definitely
locked in time from those streets down there, and um,
Lower Manhattan I like it too, but it is very
(16:10):
easy to be like, are are you sure we're going
in the right direction? Still, it's very easy to get
lost in those because it isn't at all a grid. Yeah.
I've spent enough time in Lower Manhattan now to where
I can landmark it, like it's just familiar enough to
me to where I kind of know, like this block
in that block, so I know where I'm going. Um,
and you mentioned something important. I don't think we've even
(16:31):
kind of said that New York was not all this
just big, one, big flat slab thirteen miles long that
we love today because you can walk forever without ever
getting out of breath. Because it's not Seattle. Um. New
York was swamp land and it had hills and marshes
and creeks and rocks, and it was you know, it
(16:52):
was kind of wild East Coast territory. Yeah. And I
mean the reason that those marshes in the ponds and
hills and stuff aren't there anymore is because of this
eighteen eleven Commissioner's planing. It basically said tear it all down,
fill it all in, build this over it. And they did.
That's the most astounding thing is they did that. They
(17:14):
they you know, as we'll see, they passed a law
that basically said, we're gonna appoint a commission of three people.
They're going to come up with three people, and whatever
they come up with is law. It can't be challenged
in court, and we're not going to back up, back
it up and and change it in any way. And
they really didn't. As bad as the plan was, and
(17:35):
almost every way, they really stuck to it. But the
thing that struck me, I had no idea about this
UM was that the the eighteen eleven Commissioner's Plan was
just a rip off of another earlier surveying map that
basically provided the basis of this of the Commissioner's plan,
not even the basis of it. They were like, oh,
(17:56):
we'll take this as a starting point. They just said,
we'll take this print and put our names on it.
And that's ultimately what happened. Yeah, So pre Revolutionary War UM,
most of Manhattan was in that lower third of the island,
and we got into big time debt because of the
Revolutionary War. And so the city said in the seventeen eighties,
(18:18):
al right, here's what we gotta do. We owned tons
of land, publicly owned land, and all this marshy kind
of ready rocky pondi area. Um, it's not developed. Let's
sell the stuff off and make some dough. It's called
the common Lands, and we need somebody to get in
there and just sort of, you know, survey this and
(18:39):
plot it out out so we know exactly how to
best sell this. Yeah, so they hired a guy named
Kasimir Theodore Girk. That's how I'm going with this. Girk.
Sure it's not a cucumber, it's a gherkin. Do you
remember Mr Cabbagehead from Kids in the Um? Well this
had nothing to do with that, right right. Um. So this,
(19:01):
this surveyor actually went through the common Lands like basically
what we understand is all of Manhattan between Houston and
North Harlem. He just went across and broke it into
five hundred acre parcels. He had a sixty six ft
chain on his um surveying poles, and so he said, well,
(19:23):
I'll just use that as the basic measurement for the
widest streets. Sixty six ft is what it's going to be.
I think he said five acre parcels. Weren't they five acre?
Oh yes, I'm sorry, it's a little bit of a difference.
They were five acre parcels. So that's even more work.
That's a hundred times more work than what I described.
That's right. So, um, he laid him out as a
(19:45):
grid because he wasn't like, this guy wasn't out to
say here's how Manhattan should be built, right right, this
is the best way to promote the future of growth
in Manhattan. No, that was not his charge. His charge
was like, hey, let's just to buy this stuff up
and sell it. Um. He had some interesting constraints. They
had to be five acres, they had to have a
central road that um all of these could sort of
(20:08):
access like fairly easily. And then he had the survey chain.
It's crazy to think about this was one of the
things that informed what is modern New York. His survey
chain was sixty six ft. So he said, all right,
that's how wide the road is. Yeah, exactly, So I
think that was like the the widest road, the central
access road. He called that one Middle and now I
(20:29):
believe that's fifth Avenue is Middle what was originally Middle
Road back in Yeah, that's adorable. So he carved this up,
this place up into um into these plots that are
um two feet on the east and west boundaries of it,
so going up and down, running north south. But if
(20:51):
you're on the plot, it would be on the east
side of the plot, in the west side of the plot,
if that was not confusing before it is now. And
then across Austar the width was nine twenty ft and
that was Those were the plots. He said, here you go,
this is a there's a bunch of them up there.
But I've carved up all of these common lands and
you can start selling them if you want. Yeah. Did
(21:12):
you mention the names of the other two roads? Oh? Yeah,
he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna put two more in
of these sixty six ft wide roads, and uh, he
had some very clever names for them. Yeah. One was Middle, remember,
the one to the east he named East, and the
one to the west he named west. Yeah, which which
makes sense if you're looking at it from if you're
(21:34):
on the Middle Road to the east is the East
road to the west of the West Road, but they
run north south right, man, I hate directions. Uh, And
like you said, that was fifth in the center, so
that's now fourth, fifth and sixth or fourth Avenue, fifth
Avenue and the avenue. You know, you really not supposed
(21:57):
to say that. What a jerk. I believe that said that.
Didn't say it like that, and you just you just
made sure that you wait until the crowd had gathered
and really late into me. I think I remember, was
that our first trip to New York? Probably? Yeah, probably,
That's funny. We've been back a couple of times since
then as a team. Huh. Yeah, I know, I've got
some really great memories of New York. I miss it. Yeah,
(22:20):
it's been a while. One. Well, we will see you again, Yes,
we will New York, don't you, at least I hope.
So there are no guarantees, right, No, we will see
New York again. All right? So, uh do we take
another break? I feel like there's still a lot. There's
still a lot. We should keep going for now, I think.
All right. So in eighteen oh seven, this is when
(22:40):
the New York State Legislature said, you know what we
need to like, we're growing here. It's clear that this
southern tip of Manhattan is just the beginning. So they
passed a bill that they described as an Act of
relative and Act relative to improvements touching uh the laying
out of the streets and roads in the City of
New York and for other purposes, right, which made sense.
(23:03):
But like I said, that this law, they decided to
just vest absolute authority into these three commissioners and said,
we're going to follow whatever they come up with, whatever
they that seems to them most conducive to public good.
We're just going to take on its face that it
is most conducive to public good and just go with it.
(23:24):
That's crazy that it was just three people, and that
it wasn't like ten teams of three people submitting the
best designs that then would be gone over and voted on.
Like took this, No one took it seriously. Weirdly enough,
very so who were these guys? So there are three
commissioners appointed. Whate was Governor Morris. His first name was
Governor Um. He was one of the founding fathers. He
(23:46):
wrote a lot of the Constitution, including the preamble. Um.
He had a peg leg. He lost his leg in
a carriage accident, Um, although there's rumors that it was
something else. But he was known as a dave. It's
an energetic philanderer. But he was apparently a very likable
Benjamin Franklin asked, kind of dude, UM, who seemed to
(24:10):
be fairly smart but had really no understanding of surveying
as far as I can tell. No. Then his nephew
in law, John Rutherford, He's he was a landowner in
New Jersey. In fact, I think the largest landowner in
New Jersey at the time. And by all accounts, it
looks like this was pure nepotism. He was late for meetings,
(24:31):
he was not especially interested, even to the annoyance of
Governor Morris. All the reasons to not exercise nepotism. This
guy brought to the table is one third of this
commission who's figuring out how to lay out the plan
for New York City. That's right. And then the third guy,
Simon Lebon No, no, no, Simeon DeWitt, excuse me. And
(24:53):
this guy actually knew what he was doing. He was
a really very respected, accomplished surveyor, worked with George Washington.
I think it eventually became the UM which I didn't
even know as a thing. Was the official surveyor for
the Continental Army and then the surveyor General of New
York State, right, so he knew what he was doing,
(25:13):
which makes his role all the more shameful that he
didn't say, like, oh, well, we really gotta we gotta
get cracking. It's been three years and we got four
years to do. And maybe he did, though he knows.
He might have been completely run over about these other
two jumps and he just got shouted down. I guess
I don't know. Well, at the very least. Governor Morris
was also one of the founding members of the commission
(25:34):
that created the Erie Canal, which was for a very
long time considered one of the greatest public works projects
in the history of America, certainly in the history of
New York State. UM and that kind of energy and
imagination and drive just did not make it to this
eighteen eleven Commission for the Planning of New York. I
wonder if he I mean, this sounds cynical, but I
(25:56):
wonder if he literally was like, man, that Erie Canal
project really was a big bummer, and how hard we
had to work, and let's just kind of, Hey, look
at these maps that this guy drew to sell off
New York. Let's let's just use those. Yeah. So that's
I mean, that's kind of what they did. Like they
they had four years or they took four years, I'm
(26:16):
not sure how long they had, but they took four
years from eighteen or seven to eighteen eleven um to
turn in their report. Four years of meeting sporadically true,
but they still met over these this four year period.
They came up with an eleven page report to lay
out these thirteen miles in length, not not even square
(26:38):
miles um of Manhattan, these common lands, all the way
from House and Street up to North Harlem. Um. They
came up with eleven pages to explain their map. And
their map really made sense as a grid. But again
they stole the grid from Kazmir Gork. I can't remember
what I called them before. I'm going with Gork now, Okay, sure, um,
(27:02):
but they didn't give them any credit for it whatsoever. No,
I mean, I don't want to go so far as
to call it a tracing project, but you know, they
borrowed pretty heavily, Like the streets and the avenues were
basically the exact same when you know earlier you mentioned
the blocks were two Kirk from Kirk, right, yeah, this
(27:25):
this had the exact same way out and that was
no accident, no, and they were in virtually the same spot.
They did do some stuff, you know, They didn't just
take his his map, like you're saying, and trace it
and call it their own. They made some changes to it.
They created instead of the three middle, east, and West,
they created twelve avenues running north south and not not
(27:48):
true north south, but just you know, for our purposes
north and south. And then they created a hundred and
fifty five numbered streets. But they added this stuff, but
it's sort of just copy pay kind of kind of.
But the big thing is so adding the twelve numbered
avenues was definite change to Girk's corks. I'm never going
(28:09):
to say the same thing twice, But was it? Yeah,
because he only had the three, I know, but he
just had the three and they were like, well, we
need more, so let's just do what he did all
over the place. Sure, sure, okay, all right, you know
what I'm saying, that's fair. Yeah, I'm they're these guys
are definitely not a hill. I'm willing to die on.
So say what you will about them. I think they're
lazy schmos too. And then they took these they took
(28:31):
these cross streets that are formed by the surveying of
these blocks and turn them into numbered streets. So avenues
running north south they were the big ones, D fifty
five numbered streets running east to west. Um. They they
widened the avenues that said they're gonna be a hundred feet. Why.
I guess they had a longer surveying right. Um. And
(28:52):
then they widened some of the cross streets to I
guess ease congestion. Um. I think they widened fifth teen
of them total. Yeah, they I think the other streets
were sixty feet and then fifteen of them went to
a hundred at six one. But why why those particular
(29:21):
ones there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason
because if you notice, they didn't really hit their stride
into keeping them separated by ten ten cross streets until
six street. So there's not really much rhyme or reason
there when they only did that for three of them, right,
for four of them. And then the the streets that
(29:42):
they did choose to widen didn't necessarily make much sense
one way or the other, Like, for example, seventy one
Street was already fairly wide, it was definitely wider than
seventy two Street, but they decided to make seventy two
Street the widened Um the widen cross Street, rather than
seventy one, And apparently no one knows why. The closest
(30:04):
thing I could find is there some record in eighteen
fifty seven of somebody having to remove a big rock
from seventy Street to widen it. But that doesn't even
explain or makes sense, because there was a bunch of
houses that had to be torn down to make seventy
Street widened rather than seventy one, which was already wide
(30:25):
and had almost no houses exactly. So these guys were
just when you start to compile all the evidence, we'll
we'll kind of pay more out. It really seems like
these guys didn't even go to the common Lands, that
maybe they were just working from Girk's map, or if
they did go to the common Lands, they took zero
(30:46):
notes or paid zero attention, and that all of this
came from a place of laziness and ignorance, like not
knowing that seventy two was wider than seventy feet or
vice versa. Um would explain that decision more than anything else. Yeah,
if the other Another example is if you've ever been
on the West side and you feel like, man, these
(31:06):
avenues are big, it's because they are. The avenues on
the east side are spaced at six hundred and fifty
and six hundred and ten ft apart or six hundred
and ten feet apart, and on the west they are
all eight hundred feet apart for no reason, no reason
at all. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Again, it
just it seems like they just phone this in. And
(31:29):
what's even more astounding is that New York's founding father said, Okay,
we're gonna do exactly what you say without questioning it. Yeah,
and actually we kind of do have the reason if
you read closely, and we'll tell you the secret reason.
Right after this U Z FORR. Cliffhanger. It was great.
(32:05):
I'm still a little tense waiting for you to pay
it all. All right, here's the real reason, everyone, and
it all lies in this quote that has pulled from
their commission report. If it should be asked, why the
why was the present plan adopted in preference to any
other The answer is because after taking all circumstances into consideration,
(32:27):
it appeared to be the best or, in other more
proper terms, attended with the least inconvenience. And I think
that's the magic phrase right there, that last phrase attended
with the least inconvenience. And Dave rightfully says, what is obvious,
which is inconvenient for the three commissioners? Yeah, because their
(32:52):
plane was extraordinarily inconvenient for basically everyone involved. Like there
was very from the people who were in charge of
like making this this like building this grid or this
plan to um, the people who are already living in
places that were torn down. Yeah, places were torn down
(33:14):
to to adhere to this plan, this eighteen eleven commission plan.
That's crazy. Um. And again when you start to add
all this stuff up, it does seem like the least
inconvenient for the three commissioners. And the fact that if
that is true and they just included that is kind
of like a cheeky little joke. You know, these guys
(33:35):
are they're not not necessarily burning in hell, but they're
probably in purgatory somewhere. I also have a lot of
respect for that kind of laziness at times. So the
kind that makes fun of itself and public documents, well
just just is that upfront about the fact, like you
know what that didn't really want to work too hard
on this, So here's here it is, right. So uh yeah,
(33:59):
it was very incon in it for everyone but them.
Uh they did this because of the growth population they expected,
so it sort of made sense. But they even got
that wrong. They were wrong by about half of what
they thought the growth rate was going to be. Yeah,
that's that's the thing is. They were saying, like, okay,
this is the this affords um enough population growth to
(34:22):
afford a population greater than any other this side of China,
is how they put it. UM. So they clearly did
have at least growth on their mind, and that if
you build on a grid affords for the most growth.
It's the easiest to build on. Right angled structures are
the easiest to build and settle and live in. UM.
(34:44):
But the thing is is part of that law, that
eighteen o seven law that established the commission charged them
with creating public squares. Although it said uh, in in
size and form and all that and number that the
commissioners see fit. Unfortunately, the commissioners didn't see fit to
make almost any kind of public gathering places, especially green
(35:07):
spaces for um mental health, I guess is what you
would call it. Yeah, and their reasoning is kind of uh,
kind of b s actually, Um, I'm not sure which
one it was. I guess it was Morris that I'm
not gonna read the whole quote, but he basically said, hey, listen,
we don't have the sin River or the Thames winding
(35:27):
through the middle of town, but what we do have
are these two wonderful rivers that just kind of hug Manhattan.
And that's enough because everyone's just gonna go hang out
out the river all the time because it's beautiful and
gorgeous and you can swim in it. And the East
River and the Hudson River will forever be our green space. Basically. Yeah,
(35:49):
Basically that that was that the city had enough, it
didn't need green spaces because of the East and the
Hudson rivers and um. Like, in about forty years people
were like, no, we we need to build Central Park. Yeah,
which was a savior because I think it says here
on their original plan only five percent of the grid
(36:09):
was public green space and two hundred forty of those
acres was a parade ground, yes, which I didn't know
exactly where that was. To you, No, I'm not sure, Um,
I don't know. I mean there, you know, there's Washington
Square Park, there's some cool kind of central promenades and
things like that. And then these you know, New York's
(36:31):
famous for these tiny little slivers of park um kind
of all over the place. But they're they're small, they
are they are very small, especially compared to the surrounding areas.
For sure, in the buildings. That's why the highline was
such a big deal. Yeah, it was a big deal.
And I remember not quite grasping why, you know, I
definitely do, because there's just people need that. People need
(36:53):
green space, they need nature, they need to be like
outside of a built environment, even if it's a built
natural environment, you know what I mean. Yeah, And and
Central Park is amazing and we love it, but that's
a it's a long way if you're in southern Manhattan
to get up there, right right. But basically these guys said,
you don't need to go hang out at the hudsoner
of the East River. It's so wonderful and lovely. So
(37:16):
the um there were a lot of people, like we
said that, we're really unhappy with this. UM. This was
a huge exercise of eminent domain. UM. There are a
lot of people on these lands already. Remember Seneca Village
that was destroyed to create Central Park. UM. They managed
to survive the U eighteen eleven commission. UM. I can't
(37:40):
remember how long that was around, but I want to
say Seneca Village is around for a good fifty years
before it was leveled in the eighteen fifties, so it
would have been around on the common lands during this time. UM.
But they're like you said, about thirty nine or of
homeowners or established buildings had to be torn down. They
(38:00):
filled in ponds, they filled in salt marshes, They completely
altered the ecosystem of stuff that could have been built
around or incorporated had they stopped and thought about how
to do that. They just leveled everything and built a
grid over it. And so a lot of people were
really really unhappy about us, and they were particularly unhappy
that the UM, the city administration was just sticking to
(38:25):
this no matter what. And there were a lot of
lawsuits and all of them from what I understand that
we're unsuccessful. Oh yeah, for about sixty years. There were
tons of lawsuits going on. And uh, I know you
said it was a big imminent domain um act, but
it was I think still the largest act of imminent
domain in New York City. And that includes Central Park
(38:45):
and the uh how we get how they get their water,
which was another good episode. Yeah, because I mean Central
Park was huge, but it's it's just a small sliver
of this larger area. Yeah. Let's this one quote from
landowner Clement clark More. He published a pamphlet um about
the Tyrannical Commissioner's planned and and it it says this
(39:07):
nothing is to be left unmolested, which does not coincide
with the street Commissioner's plummet and level. These are men
who would have cut down the seven hills of Rome
Burn big time. Yep. So um didn't matter though, No,
it really didn't matter. They just went ahead with it
blindly and thoughtlessly and did and again like it did
(39:29):
accommodate growth, although they underestimated the growth. But it took
a little while for this stuff to fill up. Um.
This this plan was delivered in eighteen eleven, but it
wasn't until eighteen seventy five that enough people had started
to move in. That there were more New Yorkers living
above fourteenth Street than they were living below it, because remember,
(39:51):
I mean Lower Manhattan was where it all began, so
that I mean it took a little while to fill in,
and it didn't even necessarily fill in uniform lee. Um.
By that same year in still forty thousand vacant lots
left in this grid plan. And that that was like
about half of the space. Yeah, I love that fact.
(40:12):
That's good. Dave has some nice facts here. At the
end um eighteen sixty nine, the very first apartment building
New York was built, uh, called the stive is Aunt
And they called them I don't even think they called
them apartments. At the time, it was called a French
flat or a French house. But prior to that it
was you know, tenement houses and houses. And so the
(40:35):
stive is ant Is built and everyone thinks it's silly
that anyone would want to live in the same building
as other people, and they called it stive his Aunt's folly.
But um that it was at one forty two East
Eighteenth between Irving Place and Third Uh, and it was
it was a huge hit, Like people made fun of
(40:56):
it in the newspapers, but people signed up to live
there almost immediately. It filled up. It was demoed and
replaced in nineteen sixty but so this is eighteen sixty nine.
Very it didn't take long though. In the Dakota was built,
which still stands today. So apartment buildings kind of came
into fashion, I think, probably do just Stuyvesant's folly. Yeah,
(41:19):
well yeah, I mean it went over so well and
so quickly that it really opened the way for more
and more to be built. Pretty cool. Um. So one
thing that people point to is this Commissioner's plan of
eighteen eleven is just like that same principle or the
same significance that um, the Spanish coming in and and
(41:40):
imposing a grid over an indigenous settlement was somehow taming
the wild or the organic or something like that. There's
a This is the turning point between kind of unplanned organic, um,
much more harmonious, naturally New New York and the planned
(42:03):
modern New York that we know and love today. This
is where it went from one to the other. Um,
almost like flipping a switch. And granted for it took
decades and decades to realize this plan, but Um, when
it when it was delivered, and when it was adopted,
that was that was it? That that change happened and
(42:23):
the transition began. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I think so too.
What else is there for New York? I mean we
figure we got water, we got the subways covered, we've
got Central Park, We've got this. Yeah. Um, let's see,
there can't be much else as far as just the
bones of I know. What I want to do is
maybe how that all the mail in the trash work? Okay?
(42:47):
All right? Yeah, we did the Rocketts once even too,
that's right. I mean we've done a lot of New
York topics, that's true. Or maybe we should have moved
to a different city. Let's start talking about des Moines.
Holy cow, dude, almost simultaneously came out of my mouth. Yes,
it's so weird. It is weird. Uh, it's in the
(43:09):
zeitgeist apparently. Ah, you got anything else? I got nothing else? Okay, Well,
if you want to know more about New York, um
to start reading and then eventually travel there. Uh, they'll
give you the all clear when they're ready. And since
I said that, it's time for listener mail. Hey guys,
my sixteen year old son Owen is probs your biggest
(43:33):
fan for real. He also has a narcolepsy. I appreciate
you taking on this topic and bringing some understanding of
it to the masses. He was diagnosed in his tin
and it affects every single aspect of his life. I
think it has made him wise beyond his years personally
and compassionate to other people with invisible struggles. But it's
still sucks. If you ever want to read or here
(43:55):
firsthand accounts from people with narcolepsy, check out Julie fly
gear that is f L y G A r E
or flag are A. I'm not sure how would you
say that? Oh? I like the I like the one
with flavor. The second who was doing all kinds of
advocacy for people with arcalepsy, including a scholarship foundation. She
(44:15):
founded Project Sleep and Voices of Narcolepsy. She also wrote
a great book about her experiences with being diagnosed during
law school called Wide Awake and Dreaming. When Owen received
his diagnosis, I reached out to her for help. She said,
I want a care package with a book, a T shirt,
wrist bands, a very kind card, etcetera. To let him
know that he's not alone. That is very sweet. I
(44:37):
think she deserves an award for the work she's doing anyway,
a great resource for sure. Thanks for the work that
you do. I mean, could we get an award? You
know we've won a Webby before. I think, well, that's true.
Sometimes it's fun and entertaining, but sometimes and often it's
really important in educational as well. Sincerely, the mom of
your biggest fan. And that is from Brooke. Thanks can,
(45:00):
thanks Ohen for listening. It's really good to hear from you, guys.
Um and Uh, I feel like we should send Ohen
something too. Sure, let's do it, Chuck, we'll figure it out,
all right. We can't be shown up by this fly
Gary person. No no, no, send us, uh, send us
your physical address and we'll mail you something that's right. Um.
And in the meantime, thanks for listening and thanks for
(45:21):
being a fan. Uh and thank you for listening and
thank you for being a fan too. And if you
want to get in touch with this, like Brook did,
you can send us an email, wrap it up spanking
on the bottom and send it off to Stuff podcast
at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you should know is
a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more
(45:41):
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