# Selects: The Manhattan Grid

An episode of [Stuff You Should Know](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/278981407), 15 Aug 2026, 48 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a91018a4-ea4f-4130-bf55-ae270180c327/54a718a4-c91c-499f-87d9-b4a500dd7695/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=44710ecc-10bb-48d1-93c7-ae270180c33e

Ever wanted to know more about how the Manhattan grid was made? Well this is your chance. Find out all about it in this classic episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Hi, everybody.
[0:02] Speaker 2: It is on our COVID timeline June eighteenth, twenty twenty,
[0:05] Speaker 2: and I am here to introduce the episode on the
[0:08] Speaker 2: Manhattan Grid. I loved, loved this episode, I think, as
[0:12] Speaker 2: most people know by now, I in particular, am pretty
[0:16] Speaker 2: obsessed with not just New York, like I love New
[0:19] Speaker 2: York as a town, but the inner workings of New
[0:22] Speaker 2: York and the garbage collection and the mail delivery and
[0:26] Speaker 2: building that city up from the ground up, which is
[0:28] Speaker 2: what this episode relates to, is how they laid out
[0:30] Speaker 2: that Manhattan grid. And here's one thing I remember from it,
[0:34] Speaker 2: and here's a fun tip if you're traveling to New York.
[0:37] Speaker 2: They use spikes in the ground, I think iron spikes
[0:41] Speaker 2: to map out that grid, and you'll learn that in
[0:43] Speaker 2: this episode to follow. You know, so they knew where
[0:47] Speaker 2: the streets and the street corners would meet up in
[0:50] Speaker 2: that big rectangle, and to this day you can still
[0:54] Speaker 2: find some of those. The only place I know about them,
[0:57] Speaker 2: I'm not sure if they're on the streets anymore at all.
[1:01] Speaker 2: It seems highly unlikely, but I know you can find
[1:02] Speaker 2: them for a fact in Central Park here and there
[1:04] Speaker 2: in the rocks, those big giant boulders there because I
[1:07] Speaker 2: learned about these and when I was in New York
[1:10] Speaker 2: sometime between June eighteenth, twenty twenty when we released this and
[1:13] Speaker 2: now I can't remember.
[1:14] Speaker 1: I feel like it's a few years ago.
[1:16] Speaker 2: I saw one of those spikes, and I think I
[1:18] Speaker 2: talked about that on a later episode, but it thrilled
[1:21] Speaker 2: me to no end, and I geeked out and told
[1:23] Speaker 2: everybody I was with what that was and what it represented,
[1:25] Speaker 2: and it was a real thrill for me. No lie,
[1:28] Speaker 2: just a spike in the rock. Thought it was super cool.
[1:31] Speaker 2: So check this episode out on the Manhattan Grid. Welcome
[1:39] Speaker 2: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
[1:48] Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
[1:51] Speaker 3: there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you
[1:54] Speaker 3: Should Know another in our Endless Annals of New York
[1:59] Speaker 3: City edition.
[2:01] Speaker 1: That's right.
[2:02] Speaker 2: This is a pretty interesting episode, I think, And my
[2:07] Speaker 2: favorite part about it this was Dave ruse Are, one
[2:11] Speaker 2: of our writers, helped put this together.
[2:12] Speaker 1: And Dave is clearly annoyed.
[2:16] Speaker 2: Yeah about this whole thing, and I think it's hysterical
[2:19] Speaker 2: how many times he gets annoyed by the laziness of
[2:25] Speaker 2: the commission.
[2:26] Speaker 3: I have to say I agreed with Dave too. I
[2:28] Speaker 3: was annoyed by it as well. I think, Yeah, it's
[2:31] Speaker 3: always annoying when you see somebody like have a great
[2:34] Speaker 3: opportunity and just pee it away, you know what I mean.
[2:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, And we should also point out Dave got a
[2:40] Speaker 2: lot of his information from a really wonderful book called
[2:44] Speaker 2: City on a Grid colon How New York Became New
[2:48] Speaker 2: York by Gerald Keppel.
[2:52] Speaker 4: Not Gerald McCraney. Different Jerald, right, or is it Copple?
[2:56] Speaker 1: I think it's Kepel.
[2:57] Speaker 4: If it's Koe That's what I was going with, was Keppel.
[3:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to get this book though.
[3:01] Speaker 2: This is right at Malley because you know, I'm obsessed
[3:04] Speaker 2: with the history and the sort of formation of New
[3:07] Speaker 2: York City as we know it today.
[3:08] Speaker 4: Yeah, where'd you get the idea for this episode?
[3:11] Speaker 2: Just my constant desire to learn about Mannahatta and how
[3:18] Speaker 2: that became eventually Manhattan.
[3:20] Speaker 1: That we know and love. Okay, I'm just fascinated by it.
[3:22] Speaker 1: I love it. I love everything about it.
[3:24] Speaker 3: This is definitely a big chapter because what we're talking
[3:26] Speaker 3: about is the plan called the Commissioner's plan of eighteen
[3:30] Speaker 3: eleven that basically laid out Manhattan as we know and
[3:34] Speaker 3: understand and love it today. Everything north of Houston Street,
[3:38] Speaker 3: I should say.
[3:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, And here's sort of a quick primer is Manhattan
[3:44] Speaker 2: above Houston is almost a perfect grid. Broadway kind of
[3:49] Speaker 2: screws everything up, but you know, great street, but it's
[3:53] Speaker 2: just broadways.
[3:54] Speaker 1: Like I'm not following any rules, so I'm going to
[3:57] Speaker 1: confuse people.
[3:58] Speaker 2: But aside from that, it's pretty very much a grid
[4:02] Speaker 2: of eleven numbered avenues that run north to south generally speaking.
[4:06] Speaker 2: Then you've got Lexington Park and Madison Avenues and then
[4:10] Speaker 2: two hundred and this was at the time numbered streets
[4:15] Speaker 2: running roughly east to west. And if you want to
[4:18] Speaker 2: get a little more granular than that, the southernmost street
[4:24] Speaker 2: in the East Villages East first, as you would imagine,
[4:27] Speaker 2: the northernmost is two hundred and twentieth Street as we
[4:31] Speaker 2: live in Breed today, and Enwood, well.
[4:34] Speaker 3: That's on the island technically in Manhattan. If you're talking
[4:38] Speaker 3: about the borough, it goes up to two hundred and
[4:41] Speaker 3: twenty seventh I.
[4:43] Speaker 2: Believe, right, And if you want to go through the Bronx,
[4:47] Speaker 2: you go all the way up to sixty three.
[4:49] Speaker 4: Man, that's crazy. You've got so many streets.
[4:53] Speaker 1: That's so many streets.
[4:54] Speaker 4: You've got it, two hundred and sixty three streets.
[4:58] Speaker 2: You've got an east and west signify, which says, and
[5:01] Speaker 2: this is sort of a dummies guy to getting around
[5:04] Speaker 2: New York for the first time. Too, if you broke
[5:07] Speaker 2: your smartphone, and you also don't want to walk around
[5:09] Speaker 2: just staring at your smartphone.
[5:10] Speaker 4: The whole time, No, you're going to miss a lot.
[5:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, So try and get a little intuitive feel, because
[5:14] Speaker 2: it's really easy to get around if you know this stuff.
[5:18] Speaker 2: East and west will signify whether you're in east or
[5:20] Speaker 2: west of Fifth Avenue.
[5:22] Speaker 1: And then.
[5:24] Speaker 2: Here's a little trick too. Odd number street streets run west,
[5:30] Speaker 2: even numbers streets run east. So if you come out
[5:34] Speaker 2: of a subway and you and you know which way north, south, east,
[5:38] Speaker 2: and west are, then you will never do the thing
[5:41] Speaker 2: that I always do and walk in the wrong direction
[5:43] Speaker 2: trying to go up or down.
[5:46] Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's the thing, like, if you know what
[5:48] Speaker 3: direction you're facing, and you know where you're trying to
[5:51] Speaker 3: go and where you are right now, you can basically
[5:54] Speaker 3: make make your way anywhere in Manhattan above Houston Street.
[5:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you're like me and you have no
[6:01] Speaker 2: idea ever what's north, south, east and west? And you know,
[6:05] Speaker 2: I had an easy time in LA because La has
[6:09] Speaker 2: the sun, well they have, they have that, but they
[6:11] Speaker 2: also have geographical landmarks that make it super easy to
[6:16] Speaker 2: tell which way north and like the Hollywood Sign and
[6:19] Speaker 2: the hills and stuff like that.
[6:21] Speaker 4: Is that real? Is the Hollywood Sign real?
[6:24] Speaker 1: What do you mean?
[6:24] Speaker 4: Is it real?
[6:26] Speaker 1: Okay?
[6:29] Speaker 2: So that makes a lot easier In New York when
[6:30] Speaker 2: I come out there are all those big tall buildings.
[6:32] Speaker 1: I never know. I can never come out and say like, well,
[6:34] Speaker 1: that's north.
[6:36] Speaker 2: But if you know that stuff and you know that
[6:38] Speaker 2: the even numbered streets run east the odd ones run west,
[6:42] Speaker 2: then you can You won't walk in the wrong direction
[6:46] Speaker 2: for a block and then get there like I do
[6:48] Speaker 2: and go, oh, we should have gone the other way.
[6:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, because depending on what direction you're walking, if you're
[6:52] Speaker 3: walking north or south, going the wrong direction in a
[6:55] Speaker 3: block isn't that bad. But if you're going east or west,
[6:57] Speaker 3: it's real bad. We are very long blocks going east
[7:02] Speaker 3: to west. And that's all part of that Commissioner's plan
[7:04] Speaker 3: that was laid out in eighteen eleven. And on the
[7:07] Speaker 3: one hand, you know, we've kind of hit upon the
[7:09] Speaker 3: pros and the cons of it. That it's easy to
[7:12] Speaker 3: get around, which is really saying something because New York
[7:15] Speaker 3: is absolutely huge. But you could make it from one
[7:18] Speaker 3: end to the other without a map, just knowing that
[7:23] Speaker 3: it's on a grid and how the grid's laid out,
[7:26] Speaker 3: even roughly. But the problem is is it's on a grid,
[7:29] Speaker 3: and a grid is one of the least organic shapes around.
[7:33] Speaker 3: And because this grid stretches over almost all of Manhattan,
[7:36] Speaker 3: most of Manhattan, for sure, it's viewed by a lot
[7:41] Speaker 3: of people as kind of soulless and canyon esque because
[7:45] Speaker 3: you're just totally surrounded almost constantly by big, imposing buildings,
[7:49] Speaker 3: all at these right angles, which it feels like a
[7:52] Speaker 3: very built environment. And until Central Park came along, which
[7:56] Speaker 3: we did an episode on in what the eighteen fifties
[7:59] Speaker 3: or sixties, Yeah, like that was it.
[8:02] Speaker 4: That was New York. There was nothing but that built environment.
[8:06] Speaker 2: I got a few more of my things, Oh, okay,
[8:08] Speaker 2: let's have them. But Manhattan's about thirteen and a half
[8:12] Speaker 2: miles long. And then so this grid makes sense. But
[8:15] Speaker 2: then once you get north of fifty ninth Street, you
[8:17] Speaker 2: start to get like Atlanta does, and a road will
[8:20] Speaker 2: just change names out of nowhere. Atlanta's very famous for that,
[8:23] Speaker 2: and people get very confused here.
[8:25] Speaker 3: Hey, it's very confusing also because the road will will
[8:28] Speaker 3: change names, but one of the names, Peachtree, will still
[8:31] Speaker 3: be there, but it's a totally different street, right, and
[8:34] Speaker 3: it does not help things.
[8:36] Speaker 1: That's right.
[8:37] Speaker 2: So north of fifty ninth, avenues on the west side
[8:40] Speaker 2: change names, but avenues on the east side do not.
[8:44] Speaker 2: So eighth becomes Central Park, west ninth becomes Columbus Avenue,
[8:48] Speaker 2: tenth becomes Amsterdam Avenue, and eleventh becomes West End Avenue.
[8:52] Speaker 4: What about Avenue of the Americas?
[8:55] Speaker 1: Well, that's six right or is that seventh?
[8:58] Speaker 4: Oh?
[8:58] Speaker 2: Man, I thought I think it sixth. I think it's
[9:00] Speaker 2: might understanding. But that's really not a name change. That's
[9:03] Speaker 2: just that's something that tourists call it, right.
[9:07] Speaker 4: I remember you making fun of me when I call
[9:09] Speaker 4: it that? Did I really? Yeah?
[9:11] Speaker 1: That sounds about right.
[9:12] Speaker 4: It was really jarring.
[9:14] Speaker 2: And then to get people really confused between third and
[9:18] Speaker 2: fifth Avenue, there are three avenues instead of what you
[9:23] Speaker 2: would think would be one because Lexington Park and Madison
[9:26] Speaker 2: fall between those. Yeah, and then south of twenty third
[9:31] Speaker 2: you've got your lettered avenues ABC and D, which is
[9:35] Speaker 2: alphabet city.
[9:36] Speaker 4: So you wouldn't need to ever pull out a map.
[9:38] Speaker 3: You just have to stand in the middle of New
[9:40] Speaker 3: York and listen to the first like ten minutes of
[9:42] Speaker 3: this episode, and you'll find your way.
[9:44] Speaker 4: No problem.
[9:46] Speaker 2: All right, should we get into this? He said, people
[9:48] Speaker 2: don't like the grid. There are a lot of people.
[9:53] Speaker 2: I mean, what did Walt Whitman call it.
[9:56] Speaker 4: Ikey? I think no, I think he.
[9:58] Speaker 1: Said he called it one perpetual dead flat.
[10:02] Speaker 3: Yeah, and streets cutting each other at right angles are
[10:05] Speaker 3: certainly the last things in the world consistent with beauty
[10:08] Speaker 3: of situation.
[10:09] Speaker 2: How about this one from Edith Wharton Rectangular New York.
[10:13] Speaker 2: This cramped horizontal gridiron of a town without towers, porticos, fountains,
[10:17] Speaker 2: or perspectives, hide bound in its deadly uniformity of mean ugliness.
[10:23] Speaker 4: Yeah, I like hide bound. That's great.
[10:25] Speaker 1: That's a great word.
[10:26] Speaker 3: And mean ugliness definitely captures like a certain sense of
[10:31] Speaker 3: New York, depending on your mood or mindset, you know. Yeah,
[10:36] Speaker 3: there's one a guy named Peter Markhuse who's an architecture critic.
[10:40] Speaker 4: He said that the grid layout.
[10:41] Speaker 3: Of Manhattan was one of the worst city plans of
[10:44] Speaker 3: any major city in the developed countries of the world.
[10:48] Speaker 2: Right, but some people love it. Some people said it
[10:50] Speaker 2: was pragmatic. Some people said it really accommodated for the
[10:54] Speaker 2: one thing it needed to accommodate for, which was massive growth.
[10:57] Speaker 4: Right.
[10:58] Speaker 2: Let me see here an architect named Raphael Vinoli, who's
[11:04] Speaker 2: I think a modern architect. Not modern, I just mean
[11:07] Speaker 2: current architect, right, but he may do modern.
[11:09] Speaker 1: Work, it knows.
[11:11] Speaker 2: He said the grid is the best manifestation of americangmatism,
[11:17] Speaker 2: pragmatism in the creation of urban form. And then in
[11:23] Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight, a Dutch architect named Rim Kool has
[11:28] Speaker 2: said that the grid was the most courageous act of
[11:30] Speaker 2: prediction in Western civilization.
[11:33] Speaker 1: Clearly talking about the growth.
[11:36] Speaker 3: Yes, but courageous act. That's like architect talk right that
[11:40] Speaker 3: right there. So, but for the most part, from what
[11:44] Speaker 3: I understand, and definitely Dave says the same thing, most
[11:48] Speaker 3: New Yorkers, especially born and raised New Yorkers, are not
[11:52] Speaker 3: happy that that's how their city is laid out. That
[11:55] Speaker 3: there's a lot of room for improvement. Yeah, your experience too, sure.
[11:59] Speaker 2: I mean Central Park is great. But you know, as
[12:01] Speaker 2: we'll find out, they did not. They didn't didn't really
[12:05] Speaker 2: plan for green spaces, and New York has done their
[12:07] Speaker 2: best to kind of carve them out since then. But
[12:11] Speaker 2: you know, let's get into this commission.
[12:13] Speaker 4: Well, let's talk about grids first.
[12:15] Speaker 2: Do you want to Yeah, all right, do you want
[12:17] Speaker 2: to take a break and then talk about the grid story?
[12:21] Speaker 4: Yes?
[12:42] Speaker 3: So New York didn't invent the grid, as much as
[12:46] Speaker 3: they like to boast that they did, they did not.
[12:48] Speaker 3: In fact, a grid layout of a city goes back
[12:52] Speaker 3: to that Indus Valley civilization that for some reason keeps
[12:56] Speaker 3: popping up in the last like year or so. I
[12:59] Speaker 3: guess they're going to make a comeback or something like that,
[13:01] Speaker 3: but they've just been coming out all over the place.
[13:04] Speaker 4: But one of the what was it, Chuck, was it?
[13:08] Speaker 4: Did they invent the zipper?
[13:10] Speaker 1: I don't think it was a zipper?
[13:11] Speaker 4: What was indigo?
[13:13] Speaker 1: Uh?
[13:15] Speaker 4: There's been a number of them.
[13:16] Speaker 3: But anyway, about at least five thousand years ago, the
[13:20] Speaker 3: Indus Valley civilization was using the grid layout to create
[13:24] Speaker 3: Mohan Joe Daro, which was a seven and fifty acre
[13:29] Speaker 3: city on a grid. And then shortly after that the
[13:32] Speaker 3: Greek said, I really like this. In fact, there's a
[13:35] Speaker 3: Greek thinker and mathematician named Hippodamus who's known as the
[13:41] Speaker 3: father of city planning, and he was bully for grids too.
[13:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have a grid, that's still they people
[13:48] Speaker 2: still call that the Hippodamian plan, which is kind of
[13:52] Speaker 2: great all these years later to still get recognized for
[13:54] Speaker 2: your grid work.
[13:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're ever talking to somebody and they refer
[13:57] Speaker 3: to a grid as a Hippodamian plan, that person knows
[14:00] Speaker 3: what they're talking.
[14:01] Speaker 1: About, or listens to this show. It's one in the
[14:05] Speaker 1: same basically. And you were going to say that.
[14:08] Speaker 2: Let me see, the conquistadors of Spain, they kind of
[14:12] Speaker 2: had a habit of coming in conquering and then having
[14:16] Speaker 2: their template in place to create these grids as what
[14:20] Speaker 2: they call the law of the Indies, and they would
[14:22] Speaker 2: sort of just come in setup shop. You got a
[14:25] Speaker 2: town with a big central plaza and then a grid
[14:29] Speaker 2: surrounding that central plaza.
[14:31] Speaker 3: Right, and they use that for everything from Lima to
[14:35] Speaker 3: Los Angeles.
[14:37] Speaker 4: And this took me back in my mind to.
[14:41] Speaker 3: What was the name of that colonial town in Guatemala
[14:45] Speaker 3: that we visited.
[14:46] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know what you mean.
[14:50] Speaker 3: It was wonderful, driving crazy, It really was wonderful. Is
[14:53] Speaker 3: one of the most beautiful towns I've ever been in.
[14:55] Speaker 3: But it had like a central plaza with a fountain.
[14:58] Speaker 3: It was a much smaller town. But now that I
[15:01] Speaker 3: think about, it was laid out on a grid too,
[15:03] Speaker 3: And it was part of that law of the Indies
[15:05] Speaker 3: that you were mentioning that it was just like, this
[15:07] Speaker 3: is how you build a town. And apparently the reason
[15:10] Speaker 3: that they they used that law, like in town after
[15:15] Speaker 3: town after town that they just basically took over and
[15:19] Speaker 3: said this is ours now it's Spain's is applying a
[15:23] Speaker 3: grid was kind of a metaphor for applying order and
[15:28] Speaker 3: civilization to a formerly disordered and wild indigenous.
[15:35] Speaker 4: You know town.
[15:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, which makes sense from a colonizer's perspective, but I'm
[15:40] Speaker 3: sure it sucked from the indigenous person's perspective.
[15:43] Speaker 1: Like everything else.
[15:44] Speaker 4: Yeah, that's with this stupid right angle stuff.
[15:48] Speaker 2: So New York City comes along. Philadelphia had been laid
[15:52] Speaker 2: out in a grid by William Penn very deliberately, though,
[15:57] Speaker 2: and that grid was kind of roomy and spacious, because
[16:01] Speaker 2: William Penn did not like the congestion of London. But again,
[16:06] Speaker 2: Philly very much purposeful too.
[16:10] Speaker 1: Yeah. Boy, DC has has kind of a crazy grid.
[16:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, but once you understand it, it makes total sense.
[16:16] Speaker 3: Numbers and letters and directions. Yeah, I always, but it
[16:19] Speaker 3: takes a little more.
[16:21] Speaker 4: It takes more getting used to than New York too,
[16:23] Speaker 4: from my experience and what I.
[16:25] Speaker 1: Understand, Yeah, for sure.
[16:27] Speaker 2: So the Commissioner's Plan of eighteen eleven is really sort
[16:31] Speaker 2: of the demarcation point between what was first New York,
[16:36] Speaker 2: New Amsterdam and then what we now know is Manhattan.
[16:40] Speaker 2: Because anyone who's ever seen almost said Games of New York,
[16:44] Speaker 2: Gangs of New York knows that those were crazy days
[16:48] Speaker 2: down there in Lower Manhattan and things just sort of
[16:52] Speaker 2: sprouted up organically from the river upward as far as
[16:56] Speaker 2: the layout and the design, And you know, you can
[17:00] Speaker 2: still feel that when you go down to Lower Manhattan,
[17:02] Speaker 2: which is why I love the villages.
[17:04] Speaker 1: Now.
[17:05] Speaker 2: I think it's just I mean, I like the simplicity
[17:08] Speaker 2: of the grid, but I think what I love about
[17:10] Speaker 2: Lower Manhattan is how organic it feels.
[17:13] Speaker 3: It's a jumble, and I mean it's a jumble for
[17:15] Speaker 3: a reason, because those streets largely follow these original organic
[17:20] Speaker 3: paths that the Dutch settlers and earliest English settlers basically said, oh,
[17:25] Speaker 3: we need to get from the waterfront up to the
[17:29] Speaker 3: common lands or whatever. It's because here's a good path. Yeah,
[17:32] Speaker 3: and this path happens to meander around a salt marsh,
[17:35] Speaker 3: and we avoid having to go up a hill by going.
[17:38] Speaker 4: Around this way.
[17:39] Speaker 3: So it's kind of like meandering, and it's it's definitely
[17:42] Speaker 3: locked in time from those streets down there in Lower Manhattan.
[17:46] Speaker 3: I like it too, but it is very easy to
[17:48] Speaker 3: be like, are you sure we're going the right direction? Still,
[17:52] Speaker 3: it's very easy to get lost in those because it
[17:54] Speaker 3: isn't at all a grid.
[17:55] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[17:56] Speaker 2: I've spent enough time in Lower Manhattan now to where
[17:58] Speaker 2: I can landmarket. It's just familiar enough to me to
[18:01] Speaker 2: where I kind of know, like this block in that block, right,
[18:05] Speaker 2: so I know where I'm going. And you mentioned something important.
[18:08] Speaker 2: I don't think we've even kind of said that New
[18:11] Speaker 2: York was not all this just big, one big flat
[18:14] Speaker 2: slab thirteen miles long that we love today because you
[18:18] Speaker 2: can walk forever without ever getting out of breath, because
[18:21] Speaker 2: it's not Seattle, right, New York was swamp land and
[18:25] Speaker 2: it had hills and marshes and creeks and rocks, and
[18:30] Speaker 2: it was you know, it was kind of wild East
[18:31] Speaker 2: Coast territory.
[18:33] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[18:33] Speaker 3: And I mean the reason that those marshes and the
[18:37] Speaker 3: ponds and hills and stuff aren't there anymore is because
[18:40] Speaker 3: of this eighteen eleven commissioners Planet basically said tear it
[18:44] Speaker 3: all down, fill it all in, build this over it.
[18:47] Speaker 4: And they did. That's the most astounding thing is they
[18:50] Speaker 4: did that.
[18:51] Speaker 3: They they you know, as we'll see, they passed a
[18:53] Speaker 3: law that basically said, we're going to appoint a commission
[18:57] Speaker 3: of three people. They're going to come up with three people,
[19:00] Speaker 3: and whatever they come.
[19:01] Speaker 4: Up with is law.
[19:03] Speaker 3: It can't be challenged in court, and we're not going
[19:06] Speaker 3: to back it up and change it in any way.
[19:09] Speaker 3: And they really didn't. As bad as the plan was
[19:12] Speaker 3: in almost every way, they really stuck to it. But
[19:16] Speaker 3: the thing that struck me, I had no idea about
[19:18] Speaker 3: this was that's the eighteen eleven Commissioner's plan was just
[19:24] Speaker 3: a ripoff of another earlier surveying map that basically provided
[19:30] Speaker 3: the basis of this of the Commissioner's plan, not even
[19:32] Speaker 3: the basis of it. They were like, oh, we'll take
[19:34] Speaker 3: this as a starting point. They just said, we'll take this,
[19:37] Speaker 3: print it and put our.
[19:38] Speaker 4: Names on it. And that's ultimately what happened.
[19:41] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[19:42] Speaker 2: So, pre Revolutionary War, most of Manhattan was in that
[19:47] Speaker 2: lower third of the island, and we got into big
[19:50] Speaker 2: time debt because of the Revolutionary War. And so the
[19:54] Speaker 2: city said in the seventeen eighties, all right, here's what
[19:56] Speaker 2: we got to do. We own tons of land, publicly land,
[20:01] Speaker 2: and all this marshy, kind of reedy, rocky pondy area.
[20:06] Speaker 2: It's not developed. Let's sell this stuff off and make
[20:10] Speaker 2: some dough. It's called the common Lands. And we need
[20:13] Speaker 2: somebody to get in there and just sort of, you know,
[20:16] Speaker 2: survey this and plot it all out so we know
[20:18] Speaker 2: exactly how to best sell this.
[20:20] Speaker 3: Yeah, so they hired a guy named Casimir Theodore Girk.
[20:24] Speaker 3: That's how I'm going with this, Girk. Sure it's not
[20:27] Speaker 3: a cucumber, it's a girkin. Do you remember mister cabbagehead
[20:31] Speaker 3: from Kids in the Hall? Sure, well this had nothing
[20:35] Speaker 3: to do with that, right, right. So this, this surveyor
[20:39] Speaker 3: actually went through the common lands. Like, basically, what we
[20:43] Speaker 3: understand is all of Manhattan between Houston and North Harlem.
[20:51] Speaker 3: He just went across and broke it into five hundred
[20:54] Speaker 3: acre parcels. He had a sixty six foot chain on
[20:57] Speaker 3: his surveying poles, and so he said, well, I'll just
[21:01] Speaker 3: use that as the basic measurement for the widest streets.
[21:04] Speaker 4: Sixty six feet is what it's going to be.
[21:07] Speaker 1: I think he said, five hundred acre parcels. Weren't they
[21:09] Speaker 1: five acre?
[21:10] Speaker 3: Oh yes, I'm sorry, this is a little bit of
[21:14] Speaker 3: a difference. They were five acre parcels. So that's even
[21:16] Speaker 3: more work. That's one hundred times more work than what
[21:18] Speaker 3: I described.
[21:20] Speaker 1: That's right.
[21:20] Speaker 2: So he laid him out as a grid because he
[21:24] Speaker 2: wasn't like, this guy wasn't out to say here's how
[21:27] Speaker 2: Manhattan should be built.
[21:28] Speaker 3: Right right, this is the best way to promote the
[21:30] Speaker 3: future of growth in Manhattan.
[21:32] Speaker 1: No, that was not his charge.
[21:33] Speaker 2: His charge was like, hey, let's just to buy this
[21:35] Speaker 2: stuff up and sell it. He had some interesting constraints.
[21:40] Speaker 2: They had to be five acres, they had to have
[21:42] Speaker 2: a central road that all of these could sort of
[21:46] Speaker 2: access like fairly easily. And then he had a survey chain.
[21:50] Speaker 2: It's crazy to think about. This was one of the
[21:52] Speaker 2: things that informed what is modern New York. His survey
[21:55] Speaker 2: chain was sixty six feet. So he said, all right,
[21:58] Speaker 2: that's how why the road.
[21:59] Speaker 3: Is exactly So, I think that was like the widest road,
[22:03] Speaker 3: the central access road. He called that one Middle and
[22:06] Speaker 3: now I believe that's Fifth Avenue is Middle what was
[22:09] Speaker 3: originally Middle Road back in seventeen ninety six.
[22:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's adorable.
[22:15] Speaker 3: So he carved this up, this place up into into
[22:18] Speaker 3: these plots that are two hundred feet on the east
[22:23] Speaker 3: and west boundaries of it, so going up and down,
[22:27] Speaker 3: running north south, but if you're on the plot, it
[22:29] Speaker 3: would be on the east side of the plot, in
[22:31] Speaker 3: the west side of the plot. If that was not
[22:33] Speaker 3: confusing before it is now. Yeah, and then across or
[22:38] Speaker 3: the width was nine hundred and twenty feet and that
[22:41] Speaker 3: was the Those were the plots. He said, here you go,
[22:44] Speaker 3: this is a there's a bunch of them up there.
[22:45] Speaker 3: But I've carved up all of these common lands and
[22:48] Speaker 3: you can start selling them if you want.
[22:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, did you mention the names of the other two roads?
[22:52] Speaker 2: Oh?
[22:52] Speaker 3: Yeah, he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna put two more
[22:54] Speaker 3: in of these sixty six feet wide roads, and he
[22:58] Speaker 3: had some very clever names for them.
[23:00] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[23:00] Speaker 2: One was Middle, remember yeah. The one to the east
[23:03] Speaker 2: he named East, and the one to the west he
[23:06] Speaker 2: named west.
[23:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, which which makes sense if you're looking at it
[23:11] Speaker 3: from if you're on the Middle Road to the east
[23:14] Speaker 3: is the East road to the west of the West road.
[23:16] Speaker 3: But they run north south right, man, I hate directions.
[23:22] Speaker 2: And like you said that, it was fifth in the center,
[23:24] Speaker 2: so that's now fourth, fifth, and sixth.
[23:25] Speaker 4: A right or fourth Avenue, fifth Avenue.
[23:29] Speaker 1: And the avenue that are in America. You know, you're
[23:34] Speaker 1: really not supposed to say that. What a jerk. I
[23:36] Speaker 1: can't believe I said that.
[23:37] Speaker 3: You didn't say it like that, and you just you
[23:40] Speaker 3: just made sure that you waited until the crowd had
[23:42] Speaker 3: gathered and really laid into me.
[23:44] Speaker 1: I think I remember it was that our first trip
[23:46] Speaker 1: to New York.
[23:47] Speaker 4: Probably, man, probably.
[23:50] Speaker 1: That's funny. We've been back a couple of times since
[23:52] Speaker 1: then as a team. Huh.
[23:53] Speaker 4: Yeah, I know. I've got some really great memories of
[23:56] Speaker 4: New York.
[23:56] Speaker 1: I miss it.
[23:57] Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been a while.
[23:59] Speaker 1: Twenty two. We will see you again, Yes, we will.
[24:03] Speaker 4: New York. Don't you work at.
[24:04] Speaker 1: Least I hope. So there are no guarantees, right.
[24:06] Speaker 4: No, we will see New York again, all right, So do.
[24:10] Speaker 1: We take another break? I feel like there's still a lot.
[24:12] Speaker 4: There's still a lot. We should keep going for now,
[24:14] Speaker 4: I think, all right.
[24:15] Speaker 2: So in eighteen oh seven, this is when the New
[24:18] Speaker 2: York State legislature said, you know what we need to like,
[24:22] Speaker 2: we're growing here. It's clear that this southern tip of
[24:25] Speaker 2: Manhattan is just the beginning. So they passed a bill
[24:28] Speaker 2: that they described as an Act of Relative, an Act
[24:32] Speaker 2: relative to improvements touching the laying out of the streets
[24:36] Speaker 2: and roads in the City of New York and for
[24:38] Speaker 2: other purposes.
[24:39] Speaker 4: Right, which made sense.
[24:40] Speaker 3: But like I said, this law they decided to just
[24:45] Speaker 3: vest absolute authority into these three commissioners and said, we're
[24:50] Speaker 3: going to follow whatever they come up with, whatever they
[24:54] Speaker 3: seems to them most conducive to public good. We're just
[24:57] Speaker 3: going to take on its face that it is most
[24:59] Speaker 3: conducive to public good and just go with it.
[25:02] Speaker 2: That's crazy that it was just three people, and that
[25:05] Speaker 2: it wasn't like ten teams of three people submitting the
[25:09] Speaker 2: best designs that then would be gone over and voted
[25:11] Speaker 2: on like.
[25:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, took this. No one took it seriously weirdly enough,
[25:16] Speaker 3: very odd.
[25:16] Speaker 1: So who were these guys?
[25:17] Speaker 3: So there are three commissioners appointed. One was Governor Morris.
[25:21] Speaker 3: His first name was Governor. He was one of the
[25:23] Speaker 3: founding fathers. He wrote a lot of the Constitution, including
[25:26] Speaker 3: the preamble. Yeah, he had a peg leg. He lost
[25:30] Speaker 3: his leg in a carriage accident, although there's rumors that
[25:34] Speaker 3: it was something else. But he was known as a
[25:37] Speaker 3: Dave puts it, an energetic philanderer. But he was apparently
[25:42] Speaker 3: a very likable Benjamin Franklin esque kind of dude who
[25:47] Speaker 3: seemed to be fairly smart, but had really no understanding
[25:52] Speaker 3: of surveying as far as I can tell.
[25:54] Speaker 4: No.
[25:54] Speaker 2: Then his nephew in law, John Rutherford. He was a
[25:58] Speaker 2: landowner in New Jersey, in fact, I think the largest
[26:01] Speaker 2: landowner in New Jersey at the time. And by all
[26:05] Speaker 2: accounts it looks like this was pure nepotism. He was
[26:08] Speaker 2: late for meetings, he was not especially interested, even to
[26:11] Speaker 2: the annoyance of Governor Morris.
[26:13] Speaker 3: All the reasons to not exercise nepotism. This guy brought
[26:16] Speaker 3: to the table is one third of this commission, who's
[26:20] Speaker 3: figuring out how to lay out the plan for New
[26:22] Speaker 3: York City.
[26:23] Speaker 1: That's right.
[26:23] Speaker 2: And then the third guy, Simon Lebon No, no, no,
[26:28] Speaker 2: Simeon DeWitt, excuse me. And this guy actually knew what
[26:31] Speaker 2: he was doing. He was a really very respected, accomplished surveyor,
[26:36] Speaker 2: worked with George Washington, I think eventually became the which
[26:41] Speaker 2: I didn't even know was a thing, was the official
[26:44] Speaker 2: surveyor for the Continental Army, and then the surveyor General
[26:48] Speaker 2: of New York State.
[26:49] Speaker 3: Right, So he knew what he was doing, which makes
[26:51] Speaker 3: his role all the more shameful that he didn't say like, oh, well,
[26:55] Speaker 3: we really got to we gotta get cracking. It's been
[26:58] Speaker 3: three years and we've got four year to do.
[27:00] Speaker 2: Maybe he did, though, who knows, he might have been
[27:02] Speaker 2: completely run over by these other two jumps.
[27:04] Speaker 4: Oh and he just got shouted down. I guess.
[27:06] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[27:07] Speaker 4: Well, at the very least.
[27:08] Speaker 3: Governor Morris was also one of the founding members of
[27:11] Speaker 3: the commission that created the Erie Canal, which was for
[27:14] Speaker 3: a very long time considered one of the greatest public
[27:17] Speaker 3: works projects in the history of America, certainly in the
[27:20] Speaker 3: history of New York State, and that kind of energy
[27:24] Speaker 3: and imagination and drive just did not make it to
[27:27] Speaker 3: this eighteen eleven Commission for the Planning of New York.
[27:30] Speaker 2: I wonder if he, I mean this sounds cynical, but
[27:33] Speaker 2: I wonder if he literally was, like, man, that Erie
[27:36] Speaker 2: Canal project really was a big bummer in how hard
[27:40] Speaker 2: we had to work, and let's just kind of, Hey,
[27:42] Speaker 2: look at these maps that this guy drew to sell
[27:44] Speaker 2: off New York.
[27:46] Speaker 1: Let's just use those.
[27:47] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[27:48] Speaker 3: So that's I mean, that's kind of what they did.
[27:50] Speaker 3: Like they had four years or they took four years.
[27:54] Speaker 3: I'm not sure how long they had, but they took
[27:56] Speaker 3: four years from eighteen oh seven to eighteen eleven to
[28:00] Speaker 3: turn in their report. Four years of meeting sporadically true,
[28:06] Speaker 3: but they still met. Over this four year period, they
[28:09] Speaker 3: came up within eleven page report to lay out these
[28:13] Speaker 3: thirteen miles in length, not even square miles of Manhattan,
[28:18] Speaker 3: these common lands, all the way from House and Street
[28:20] Speaker 3: up to North Harlem. They came up with eleven pages
[28:24] Speaker 3: to explain their map, and their map really made sense
[28:27] Speaker 3: as a grid. But again they stole the grid from
[28:31] Speaker 3: Kashmir Gork. I can't remember what I called them before, Girk.
[28:37] Speaker 3: I'm going with Gork now, okay, sure, but they didn't
[28:41] Speaker 3: give them any credit for it whatsoever.
[28:43] Speaker 2: No, I mean, I don't want to go so far
[28:46] Speaker 2: as to call it a tracing project. But you know,
[28:50] Speaker 2: they borrowed pretty heavily. Like the streets and the avenues
[28:54] Speaker 2: were basically the exact same when you know, earlier you
[28:57] Speaker 2: mentioned the blocks were two hundred by nine hundred and
[28:59] Speaker 2: twenty feet in Girk from Kirk, right, Yeah, this had
[29:03] Speaker 2: the exact same way out and that was no accident.
[29:06] Speaker 3: No, and they were in virtually the same spot. They
[29:09] Speaker 3: did do some stuff, you know, they didn't just take
[29:11] Speaker 3: his map like you were saying and trace it and
[29:13] Speaker 3: call it their own. They made some changes to it.
[29:16] Speaker 3: They created instead of the three middle, east and West,
[29:21] Speaker 3: they created twelve avenues running north south and not true
[29:26] Speaker 3: north south, but just you know, for our purposes north
[29:29] Speaker 3: and south. And then they created one hundred and fifty
[29:31] Speaker 3: five numbered streets.
[29:34] Speaker 2: What they added this stuff, but it's sort of just
[29:37] Speaker 2: copy paste kind of.
[29:39] Speaker 3: But the big thing is so adding the twelve numbered
[29:42] Speaker 3: avenues was definite change to the Girk's. Gorks never going
[29:47] Speaker 3: to say the same thing twice. But was it Yeah,
[29:50] Speaker 3: because he only had the three, I know.
[29:52] Speaker 2: But he just had the three and they were like, well,
[29:55] Speaker 2: we need more, so let's just do what he did
[29:56] Speaker 2: all over the place.
[29:57] Speaker 3: Sure, sure, okay, all right, yeah, you know what I'm saying,
[29:59] Speaker 3: that's fair. Yeah, I'm they're these guys are definitely not
[30:01] Speaker 3: a hill I'm willing to die on, So say what
[30:03] Speaker 3: you will about I think they're lazy schmos too, all right.
[30:07] Speaker 4: And then they took these they took these cross.
[30:09] Speaker 3: Streets that are formed by the surveying of these blocks
[30:13] Speaker 3: and turn them into numbered streets. So avenues running north south,
[30:16] Speaker 3: they were the big ones, one hundred and fifty five
[30:18] Speaker 3: numbered streets running east to west. They they widened the avenues.
[30:24] Speaker 3: They said they're going to be one hundred feet.
[30:25] Speaker 4: Why. I guess they had a longer survey.
[30:27] Speaker 3: In the bigger chain, right, And then they widened some
[30:31] Speaker 3: of the cross streets. I guess ease congestion. I think
[30:35] Speaker 3: they widened fifteen of them total.
[30:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, they I think the other streets were sixty feet,
[30:42] Speaker 2: and then fifteen of them went to one hundred at fourteenth, twenty, third, thirty, fourth, forty, second,
[30:48] Speaker 2: fifty seven to seventy two, seventy nine, eighty six, ninety six,
[30:50] Speaker 2: one o six, one sixteen, one twenty fifth, one thirty fifth,
[30:53] Speaker 2: one forty fifth, and one fifty fifth.
[30:55] Speaker 1: Right, but why why those particular ones?
[31:00] Speaker 3: It doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason because
[31:01] Speaker 3: if you notice, they didn't really hit their stride into
[31:04] Speaker 3: keeping them separated by ten cross streets until eighty sixth Street. Yeah,
[31:11] Speaker 3: so there's not really much rhyme or reason there.
[31:13] Speaker 1: When they only did that for three of them.
[31:15] Speaker 4: Right of them, and then the.
[31:20] Speaker 3: Streets that they did choose to widen didn't necessarily make
[31:23] Speaker 3: much sense one way or the other. Like, for example,
[31:26] Speaker 3: seventy first Street was already fairly wide. It was definitely
[31:30] Speaker 3: wider than seventy second Street, but they decided to make
[31:33] Speaker 3: seventy second Street the widened the widen cross street rather
[31:38] Speaker 3: than seventy first, And apparently no one knows why. The
[31:41] Speaker 3: closest thing I could find is there's some record in
[31:44] Speaker 3: eighteen fifty seven of somebody having to remove a big
[31:48] Speaker 3: rock from seventy second Street to widen it. But that
[31:52] Speaker 3: doesn't even explain it. It makes sense because there was a
[31:55] Speaker 3: bunch of houses that had to be torn down to
[31:57] Speaker 3: make seventy second Street widen rather than seventy first, which
[32:01] Speaker 3: was already.
[32:02] Speaker 1: Wide and had almost no houses exactly.
[32:05] Speaker 3: So these guys were just when you start to compile
[32:09] Speaker 3: all the evidence, we'll kind of pay more out. It
[32:13] Speaker 3: really seems like these guys didn't even go to the
[32:17] Speaker 3: common lands, that maybe they were just working from Girk's map,
[32:21] Speaker 3: or if they did go to the common Lands, they
[32:23] Speaker 3: took zero notes or paid zero attention, and that all
[32:26] Speaker 3: of this came from a place of laziness and ignorance,
[32:29] Speaker 3: like not knowing that seventy second was wider than seventy
[32:33] Speaker 3: first or vice versa would explain that decision more than
[32:37] Speaker 3: anything else.
[32:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, if the another example is if you've ever been
[32:41] Speaker 2: on the West Side and you feel like, man, these
[32:44] Speaker 2: avenues are big, it's because they are. The avenues on
[32:47] Speaker 2: the east side are spaced at six hundred and fifty
[32:51] Speaker 2: and six hundred and ten feet apart or six hundred
[32:54] Speaker 2: and ten feet apart, and on the west they are
[32:56] Speaker 2: all eight hundred feet apart for no reason.
[33:00] Speaker 4: Reason at all.
[33:00] Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Again, it just it
[33:05] Speaker 3: seems like they just phone this in and what's even
[33:07] Speaker 3: more astounding is that New York's founding father said, Okay,
[33:12] Speaker 3: we're going to do exactly what you say without questioning it.
[33:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, and actually we kind of do have the reason
[33:17] Speaker 2: if you read closely, and we'll tell you the secret reason.
[33:20] Speaker 1: Right after this was that for a cliffhanger, it was great.
[33:43] Speaker 4: I'm still a little tense waiting for you to pay
[33:46] Speaker 4: it all.
[33:46] Speaker 2: All right, here's the real reason everyone, and it all
[33:49] Speaker 2: lies in this quote that is pulled from their commission report.
[33:54] Speaker 2: If it should be asked, why was the present plan
[33:58] Speaker 2: adopted in preference to any other? The answer is because
[34:01] Speaker 2: after taking all circumstances into consideration, it appeared to be
[34:06] Speaker 2: the best or in other more proper terms, attended with
[34:11] Speaker 2: the least inconvenience.
[34:13] Speaker 4: And I think that's the magic phrase right there.
[34:16] Speaker 2: That last phrase attended with the least inconvenience. And Dave
[34:21] Speaker 2: rightfully says, what is obvious which is inconvenient for the
[34:27] Speaker 2: three commissioners.
[34:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, because their plan was extraordinarily inconvenient for basically everyone involved.
[34:35] Speaker 3: Like there was from the people who were in charge
[34:38] Speaker 3: of like making this this like building this grid or
[34:42] Speaker 3: this plan, to the people who were already living in
[34:45] Speaker 3: places that were torn down. Yeah, forty percent of places
[34:50] Speaker 3: were torn down to adhere to this plan, this eighteen
[34:54] Speaker 3: to eleven commission plan. Yeah, that's crazy. And again when
[34:59] Speaker 3: you start to add all stuff up, it does seem
[35:01] Speaker 3: like the least inconvenient for the three commissioners.
[35:04] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[35:04] Speaker 3: And the fact that if that is true and they
[35:07] Speaker 3: just included that is kind of like a cheeky little joke.
[35:11] Speaker 3: You know, these guys are They're not necessarily burning in hell,
[35:16] Speaker 3: but they're probably in purgatory somewhere.
[35:19] Speaker 1: I also have a lot of respect for that kind
[35:20] Speaker 1: of laziness at times, So.
[35:22] Speaker 4: The kind that makes fun of itself in public documents, Well.
[35:25] Speaker 2: Just is that upfront about the fact, Like, you know what,
[35:30] Speaker 2: I didn't really want to work too hard on this, so.
[35:32] Speaker 1: Here's here it is, right.
[35:34] Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was very inconvenient for everyone but them.
[35:39] Speaker 2: They did this because of the growth population they expected,
[35:45] Speaker 2: so it sort of made sense.
[35:46] Speaker 1: But they even got that wrong.
[35:48] Speaker 2: They were wrong by about half of what they thought
[35:50] Speaker 2: the growth rate was going to be.
[35:52] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing is they were saying, like, Okay,
[35:55] Speaker 3: this is this affords enough population growth, afford a population
[36:01] Speaker 3: greater than any other this side of China.
[36:03] Speaker 4: Is how they put it.
[36:06] Speaker 3: So they clearly did have at least growth on their mind,
[36:09] Speaker 3: and that if you build on a grid, it affords
[36:12] Speaker 3: for the most growth.
[36:13] Speaker 4: It's the easiest to build on.
[36:15] Speaker 3: Right angled structures are the easiest to build and settle
[36:19] Speaker 3: and live in. But the thing is is part of
[36:23] Speaker 3: that law, that eighteen oh seven law that established the commission,
[36:27] Speaker 3: charged them with creating public squares, although it said in
[36:32] Speaker 3: size and form and all that in number that the
[36:35] Speaker 3: Commissioners see fit. Unfortunately, the Commissioners didn't see fit to
[36:39] Speaker 3: make almost any kind of public gathering places, especially green
[36:44] Speaker 3: spaces for mental health, I guess is what you would
[36:49] Speaker 3: call it.
[36:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, And the reasoning is kind of kind of bs. Actually,
[36:54] Speaker 2: I'm not sure which one it was. I guess it
[36:56] Speaker 2: was Morris that I'm not going to read the whole quote,
[36:59] Speaker 2: but he basically we said, hey, listen, we don't have
[37:02] Speaker 2: the sin River or the Thames winding through the middle
[37:05] Speaker 2: of town. But what we do have are these two
[37:09] Speaker 2: wonderful rivers that just kind of hug Manhattan. And that's
[37:13] Speaker 2: enough because everyone's just going to go hang out the
[37:16] Speaker 2: river all the time, right, because it's beautiful and gorgeous
[37:19] Speaker 2: and you can swim in it, and the East River
[37:23] Speaker 2: and the Hudson River will forever be our green space.
[37:25] Speaker 3: Basically, Yeah, basically that was the city had enough. It
[37:29] Speaker 3: didn't need green spaces because of the East and the
[37:31] Speaker 3: Hudson rivers, and like in about forty years people were like, no,
[37:37] Speaker 3: we do we need to build Central Park.
[37:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, which was a savior because I think it says
[37:42] Speaker 2: here on their original plan, only five percent of the
[37:46] Speaker 2: grid was public green space, and two hundred and forty
[37:51] Speaker 2: of those four hundred acres was a parade ground.
[37:54] Speaker 3: Yes, which I didn't know exactly where that was, so you.
[37:57] Speaker 2: No, I'm not sure, I don't know. I mean, you know,
[38:01] Speaker 2: there's Washington Square Park, there's some cool kind of central
[38:04] Speaker 2: promenades and things like that, and then these you know,
[38:08] Speaker 2: New York's famous for these tiny little slivers of park
[38:13] Speaker 2: kind of all over the place, but they're small.
[38:16] Speaker 3: They are very small, especially compared to the surrounding areas.
[38:20] Speaker 4: For sure, in the buildings.
[38:21] Speaker 1: That's why the highline was such a big deal.
[38:23] Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a big deal. And I remember not
[38:26] Speaker 3: quite grasping why. I know, I definitely do, because there's
[38:29] Speaker 3: just people need that. People need green space, they need nature,
[38:32] Speaker 3: they need to be like outside of a built environment,
[38:35] Speaker 3: even if it's a built natural environment, you know what
[38:38] Speaker 3: I mean.
[38:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, And Central Park is amazing and we love it,
[38:42] Speaker 2: but that's a long way if you're in southern Manhattan
[38:45] Speaker 2: to get up there.
[38:47] Speaker 4: Right right.
[38:47] Speaker 3: But basically, these guys said, you don't need it, go
[38:50] Speaker 3: hang out at the hud center of the East River.
[38:52] Speaker 1: It's so wonderful and lovely.
[38:54] Speaker 3: So there were a lot of people, like we said,
[38:57] Speaker 3: that were really unhappy with this. This was a huge
[39:01] Speaker 3: exercise of eminent domain. There were a lot of people
[39:05] Speaker 3: on these lands already. Remember Seneca Village that was destroyed
[39:10] Speaker 3: to create Central Park. They managed to survive the eighteen
[39:15] Speaker 3: eleven commission. I can't remember how long that was around,
[39:20] Speaker 3: but I want to say Seneca Village was around for
[39:22] Speaker 3: a good fifty years before it was leveled in the
[39:24] Speaker 3: eighteen fifties, so it would have been around on the
[39:27] Speaker 3: common lands during this time. But there were, like you said,
[39:31] Speaker 3: about thirty nine or forty percent of homeowners or established
[39:36] Speaker 3: buildings had to be torn down. They filled in ponds,
[39:39] Speaker 3: they filled in salt marshes, they completely altered the ecosystem
[39:44] Speaker 3: of stuff that could have been built around or incorporated
[39:47] Speaker 3: had they stopped and thought about how to do that.
[39:49] Speaker 3: They just leveled everything and built a grid over it.
[39:53] Speaker 3: And so a lot of people were really really unhappy
[39:55] Speaker 3: about us, and they were particularly unhappy that the city
[40:00] Speaker 3: the administration was just sticking to this no matter what.
[40:03] Speaker 3: And there were a lot of lawsuits in all of them,
[40:05] Speaker 3: from what I understand, were unsuccessful.
[40:07] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for about sixty years, there were tons of
[40:10] Speaker 2: lawsuits going on. And I know you said it was
[40:13] Speaker 2: a big eminent Domain Act, but it was I think
[40:18] Speaker 2: still the largest act of eminent domain in New York City. Yeah,
[40:21] Speaker 2: and that includes Central Park and the how they get
[40:25] Speaker 2: their water, which was another good episode.
[40:27] Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean Central Park was huge, but it's
[40:30] Speaker 3: just a small sliver of this larger area.
[40:34] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[40:35] Speaker 2: This one quote from landowner Clement Clark Moore. He published
[40:39] Speaker 2: a pamphlet about the Tyrannical Commissioner's plan, and in it
[40:43] Speaker 2: it says this nothing is to be left unmolested, which
[40:47] Speaker 2: does not coincide with the street Commissioner's plummet and level.
[40:51] Speaker 2: These are men who would have cut down the Seven
[40:53] Speaker 2: Hills of Rome.
[40:55] Speaker 1: Burn big time yeap, So it didn't matter, though.
[41:00] Speaker 4: It really didn't matter.
[41:01] Speaker 3: They just went ahead with it blindly and thoughtlessly and
[41:05] Speaker 3: did and again like it did accommodate growth, although they
[41:09] Speaker 3: underestimated the growth. But it took a little while for
[41:12] Speaker 3: this stuff to fill up. This plan was delivered in
[41:17] Speaker 3: eighteen eleven, but it wasn't until eighteen seventy five that
[41:20] Speaker 3: enough people had started to move in that there were
[41:22] Speaker 3: more New Yorkers living above fourteenth Street than there were
[41:27] Speaker 3: living below it. Because remember, I mean, Lower Manhattan was
[41:30] Speaker 3: where it all began, so that I mean it took
[41:33] Speaker 3: a little while to fill in, and it didn't even
[41:35] Speaker 3: necessarily fill in uniformly. By that same year, in eighteen
[41:40] Speaker 3: seventy five, there were still forty thousand vacant lots left
[41:44] Speaker 3: in this grid plan, and that was like about half
[41:47] Speaker 3: of the space.
[41:48] Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that fact. That's good. Dave has some
[41:51] Speaker 1: nice facts here. At the end.
[41:53] Speaker 2: Eighteen sixty nine, the very first apartment build in New
[41:56] Speaker 2: York was built, called the Stivesant and they called them
[42:02] Speaker 2: I don't even think they called them apartments at the time.
[42:05] Speaker 2: It was called a French flat or a French house.
[42:07] Speaker 2: But prior to that it was you know, tenement houses
[42:10] Speaker 2: and houses, and so the Stuve is Ant is built
[42:14] Speaker 2: and everyone thinks it's silly that anyone would want to
[42:19] Speaker 2: live in the same building as other people, and they
[42:21] Speaker 2: called it stuives Ant's folly, but that it was at
[42:25] Speaker 2: one hundred and forty two East eighteenth between Irving Place
[42:28] Speaker 2: and Third and it was a huge hit, Like people
[42:33] Speaker 2: made fun of it in the newspapers, but people signed
[42:37] Speaker 2: up to live there almost immediately.
[42:38] Speaker 1: It filled up.
[42:40] Speaker 2: It was demoed and replaced in nineteen sixty, so this
[42:44] Speaker 2: is eighteen sixty nine. Very it didn't take long though.
[42:47] Speaker 2: In eighteen eighty four the Dakota was built, which still
[42:49] Speaker 2: stands today. So apartment buildings kind of came into fashion,
[42:54] Speaker 2: I think probably due just stuive's Ant's folly.
[42:57] Speaker 3: Yeah I will yeah, I mean it went over so
[42:59] Speaker 3: well and so quickly that it really opened the way for.
[43:01] Speaker 4: More and more to be built.
[43:03] Speaker 1: Pretty cool.
[43:05] Speaker 3: So one thing that people point to is this Commissioner's
[43:08] Speaker 3: plan of eighteen to eleven is just like that same
[43:12] Speaker 3: principle or the same significance that the Spanish coming in
[43:17] Speaker 3: and imposing a grid over an indigenous settlement was somehow
[43:23] Speaker 3: taming the wild or the organic.
[43:26] Speaker 4: Or something like that. There's a This is the turning
[43:29] Speaker 4: point between kind of unplanned, organic, much more harmonious, naturally
[43:37] Speaker 4: New York and the planned modern New York that we
[43:42] Speaker 4: know and love today.
[43:44] Speaker 3: This is where it went from one to the other,
[43:46] Speaker 3: almost like flipping a switch. And granted, for it took
[43:49] Speaker 3: decades and decades to realize this plan, but when it
[43:55] Speaker 3: was delivered and when it was adopted, that was that
[43:58] Speaker 3: was it. That change happened and the transition began.
[44:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
[44:04] Speaker 4: I think so too.
[44:05] Speaker 1: What else is there for New York?
[44:07] Speaker 2: I mean, we figure we got water, we got the
[44:10] Speaker 2: subways covered, We've got Central Park, We've got this.
[44:13] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, let's see, there.
[44:16] Speaker 2: Can't be much else as far as just the bones
[44:17] Speaker 2: of Oh I know what I want to do is
[44:19] Speaker 2: maybe how that how the mail and the trash work?
[44:24] Speaker 4: Okay, all right, yeah, we did the rockets once even too.
[44:27] Speaker 1: Oh that's right.
[44:29] Speaker 4: I mean we've done a lot of New York topics,
[44:31] Speaker 4: it's true.
[44:33] Speaker 2: Or maybe we should move to a different city. Let's
[44:35] Speaker 2: start talking about des Moines.
[44:37] Speaker 4: Holy cow, dude, it almost simultaneously came out of my mouth.
[44:42] Speaker 1: Des moines.
[44:43] Speaker 4: Yes, it's so weird. It is weird. It's in the zeitgeist.
[44:48] Speaker 4: Apparently you got anything else?
[44:51] Speaker 1: I got nothing else.
[44:52] Speaker 3: Okay, Well, if you want to know more about New
[44:54] Speaker 3: York to start reading and then eventually travel there. They'll
[44:58] Speaker 3: give you the all clear when they're And since I
[45:01] Speaker 3: said that, it's time for listener mail.
[45:06] Speaker 2: Hey guys, my sixteen year old son Owen is probs
[45:10] Speaker 2: your biggest fan for real. He also has narcolepsy. I
[45:14] Speaker 2: appreciate you taking on this topic and bringing some understanding
[45:18] Speaker 2: of it to the masses. He was diagnosing his ten
[45:20] Speaker 2: and it affects every single aspect of his life. I
[45:23] Speaker 2: think it has made him wise beyond his years personally
[45:25] Speaker 2: and compassionate to other people with invisible struggles.
[45:28] Speaker 1: But it still sucks.
[45:31] Speaker 2: If you ever want to read or hear first hand
[45:33] Speaker 2: accounts from people with narcolepsy, check out Julie flygare That
[45:38] Speaker 2: is f l y g a r E or flygare A.
[45:41] Speaker 1: I'm not sure how would you say that?
[45:43] Speaker 4: Oh? I like the one with flavor of the second one.
[45:48] Speaker 2: Who is doing all kinds of advocacy for people with narcolepsy,
[45:51] Speaker 2: including a scholarship foundation. She founded projects Sleep and Voices
[45:55] Speaker 2: of Narcolepsy. She also read a great book about her
[45:58] Speaker 2: experiences with being diagnosed during law school called Wide Awake
[46:02] Speaker 2: and Dreaming. When Owen received his diagnosis, I reached out
[46:05] Speaker 2: to her for help. She sent own a care package
[46:07] Speaker 2: with a book, a T shirt, wristbands, a very kind card, etc.
[46:12] Speaker 1: To let him know that he's not alone. That is
[46:13] Speaker 1: very sweet, it is.
[46:15] Speaker 2: I think she deserves an award for the work she's
[46:17] Speaker 2: doing anyway, A great resource for sure.
[46:19] Speaker 1: Thanks for the work that you do. I mean, could
[46:22] Speaker 1: we get an award?
[46:24] Speaker 4: You know we've won a Webby before.
[46:26] Speaker 1: I think, well that's true. Yeah.
[46:28] Speaker 2: Sometimes it's fun and entertaining, but sometimes and often it's
[46:31] Speaker 2: really important and educational as well. Sincerely, the mom of
[46:34] Speaker 2: your biggest fan. And that is from Brooke.
[46:37] Speaker 3: Thanks Brooke, and thanks Owen for listening. It's really good
[46:39] Speaker 3: to hear from you, guys. And I feel like we
[46:43] Speaker 3: should send Owen something too. Sure, let's do it, Chuck, we'll.
[46:46] Speaker 4: Figure it out, all right. We can't be shown up
[46:48] Speaker 4: by this flygawary person.
[46:50] Speaker 1: No no, no, send us your physical address and we'll
[46:54] Speaker 1: mail you.
[46:54] Speaker 3: Something that's right and in the meantime, thanks for listening,
[46:58] Speaker 3: and thanks for being a fan, and thank you for listening,
[47:02] Speaker 3: and thank you for being a fan. Tune and if
[47:03] Speaker 3: you want to get in touch with us, like Brook did,
[47:05] Speaker 3: you can send us an email, wrap it up, spanking
[47:08] Speaker 3: on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff Podcasts
[47:10] Speaker 3: at iHeartRadio dot com.
[47:15] Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
[47:18] Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
[47:22] Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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