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The Manhattan Grid · Stuff You Should Know

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