“The grid is, above all, a conceptual speculation.
In spite of its apparent neutrality, it implies an intellectual program for the island: in its indifference to topography, to what it exists, it claims the superiority of mental construction over reality.
The plotting of its streets and blocks announces that the subjugation, if not obliteration, of nature is its true ambition.
All blocks are the same; their equivalence invalidates, all at once, all the systems of articulation and differentiation that have guided the design of traditional cities. The Grid makes the history of architecture and all lessons of urbanism irrelevant. It forces Manhattan’s builders to develop a new system of formal values, to invent strategies for the distinction of one block from another.
The Grid’s two-dimensional discipline also creates undreamt of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy. The grid defines a balance between control and de-control in which the city can be at the same time ordered and fluid, a metropolis of rigid chaos.
With its imposition, Manhattan is forever immunized against any (further) totalitarian intervention. In the single block─the largest possible area that can fall under architectural control─it develops a maximum unit of urbanistic Ego.
Since there is no hope that larger parts of the island can ever be dominated by a single client or architect, each intention─each architectural ideology─has to be realized fully within the limitations of the block.
Since Manhattan is finite and the number of its blocks forever fixed, the city cannot grow in any conventional manner.
Its planning therefore can never describe a specific built configuration that is to remain static through the ages; it can only predict that whatever happens, it will have to happen somewhere within the 2,028 blocks of the Grid.
It follows that one form of human occupancy can only be established at the expense of another. The city becomes a mosaic of episodes, each with its own particular life span, that contest each other through the medium of the Grid.”
－Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York (1978), pp.20-21.
Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City
New York City has been named many times. The first name, Mannahatta, or Manhattan, was given by the American Indians. When the Dutch moved in, it was called New Amsterdam. 1664 was the first time it was called New York by British settlers. Around the 1920’s, New York was called the Big Apple by actors and musicians. In 1971, the nickname gained publicity when used to enhance tourism. Manhattan is an island 13.4 miles long and 2.3 miles at its widest. Finding your way is simple as roads are laid out in a grid pattern above 14th Street. Avenues run North to South, and streets run East to West. One-way 5th Avenue marks the dividing line of the East and West side. Below 14th Street, use map, as this area was built on before the grid pattern was established.
Editors Note: As the Museum of the City of New York celebrates 200 years of the Manhattan grid in its current retrospective, it seemed only appropriate to call upon an architect with a unique opportunity to adapt the city’s grid: Stanton Eckstut, co-author of the 1979 Battery Park City Master Plan. --DM
The defining feature of a city--its street and block pattern--is a convenient tool to organize land, circulation, open space, and infrastructure. A city’s street and block pattern gives residents a way to navigate its bounds. When we think of New York City’s street grid, we tend to think of the linearity and right angles of Midtown Manhattan, where there is little distinction between streets and property is equally distributed among every block. This egalitarian parceling of land successfully promotes both movement and competitive property values. Indeed, when laid out in 1811 from Houston Street (then named North Street, as it represented the northern boundary of the city for the vast majority of residents) to 155th Street in Harlem, property values virtually skyrocketed, creating the beginnings of the New York’s obsession with real estate. This orthogonal grid was good for the production of buildings. And even better for developers.
Yet this same grid has not been very successful in responding to its unique context: in distinguishing where there is more movement, and where there is less; where large-scale, higher-density development should be promoted; and equally important, where smaller, more intimate environments should be located. The interruptions to and variations on the ”Manhattan Grid” are the true prototypes for making great cities and urban places. In New York, the locations where the diagonal orientation of Broadway intersects with the north-south avenues and east-west streets created Union Square, Madison Square, Herald Square, Times Square, and Columbus Circle. These spaces are about people. They accommodate automobiles, but do not allow them to dominate—creating a much more enjoyable city for people to inhabit.
Contrary to what many observers have speculated, the Manhattan grid was not the model for Battery Park City. When Alex Cooper and I designed the master plan in the 1970s, after several previous failed attempts by others to either replicate what was being done elsewhere under very different circumstances, or introduce new, unnatural patterns of development, we focused on the street as the defining element of the neighborhood. We looked upon the buildings as a means of creating public spaces. We took our cues from Lower Manhattan and Broadway with its skewed angle that opened the street to the cooling breezes from the southeast in the summer and offset the cold winds from the northwest in the winter. Battery Park City is successful because of its incredible variety of spaces and blocks, which afford more opportunities for a diversity of experiences and ideas. By design, there is no one street or block in Battery Park City like another.
It turns out that this is a good recipe for private development, also, because private development and property value is very focused on public space and on the creation of “addresses.” In its dead ends, its starts and stops, its twisting and changing streets, Battery Park City provides an ever-changing family of independent spaces with distinct identities and opportunities. And when the streets meet the water’s edge, public space is celebrated with prominent public parks and squares, most notably the esplanade.
When I begin designing cities and environments for urban placemaking, I might start off with an orthogonal pattern as a simple and helpful tool for organizing development. But, in order to create a unique environment with special addresses and opportunities for interaction within the city, I quickly start to plan for the exceptions. It is these variations that create opportunities for increased real estate values and a more enjoyable city in which to walk and enjoy public life.
People’s perceptions of a city are formed by its streets and not its buildings. Streets are where the delights—and petty inconveniences—that define life in the city take place. It is for this reason that neighborhoods with a diversity of streets like Battery Park City offer a greater sense of clarity to how people live and work. In places that have a sense of spatial differentiation, there is a deeper, more intense feeling for the activity associated with that place. It took the rationally planned regularity of the Manhattan grid to marry the entrepreneurial energy of New York with the relentless resourcefulness that has been the hallmark of its inhabitants. But it took the collision of this rationally planned system with the twists and turns of Broadway to produce the places that make life within that grid truly livable.
Stanton Eckstut is a Principal and Board Director of Perkins Eastman. His work encompasses large-scale development, higher education buildings and plans, schools, transit systems, office buildings, waterfronts and courthouses. Perhaps Mr. Eckstut’s most praised project, the master plan for Battery Park City, was co-authored by Alexander Cooper.
Image Credit: (1) Aerial View of Madison Square, 1894. Source: Museum of the City of New York (2) Plan of Battery Park City. Source: Perkins Eastman (3) Aerial View of Battery City Park. Source: Perkins Eastman
Extend NY - the Manhattan grid extended to every point on earth. Super cool and a reminder that, yes, everything should be considered in relation to NYC. (by @hrldcpr)
