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Selects: The Manhattan Grid · Stuff You Should Know

• 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.