Why is Manhattan's road grid the way it is?

kenratboy · #1 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 2:25 PM**

Sorry if this is the wrong location for this question.

What I mean is Manhattan is long and narrow - yet the short blocks are along the long axis (making for approximately 250 intersections from one end to the other). Why was the road grid not rotated 90-degrees to allow for fewer intersections along the long axis?

At the time it was built, I have to imagine the long blocks were supposed to be the 'quiet' streets (lots of low-rise homes, businesses, people in the street) and the short blocks were the heavy transport streets.

jmecklenborg · #2 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 2:38 PM**

Because it was assumed that most traffic would forever be east-west - the hauling of cargo back and forth between ships docked on opposite sides of the island.

pj3000 · #3 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 2:55 PM**

You answered your own question... because it is long and narrow.

Why would you want to have a ridiculous number of N-S streets spanning the entire 13 mile length of the island? And thus far fewer streets to traverse much shorter trips E-W across the island?

That’s would be a completely inefficient street system.

Why would you want a street grid like this? See how inefficient short distance E-W travel would be? And it would be absolutely unnecessary to have all of those long N-S routes.

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The North One · #4 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 3:09 PM**

Manhattan's grid is the way it is because well it wasn't planned at all. It was simply laid out for the city to sell land without any thought to it.

Columbia’s Peter Marcuse famously said that it's: “one of the worst city plans of any major city in the developed countries of the world”

pj3000 · #5 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 3:25 PM**

...

iheartthed · #6 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 3:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by pj3000

You answered your own question... because it is long and narrow.

Why would you want to have a ridiculous number of N-S streets spanning the entire 13 mile length of the island? And thus far fewer streets to traverse much shorter trips E-W across the island?

That’s would be a completely inefficient street system.

Why would you want a street grid like this? See how inefficient short distance E-W travel would be? And it would be absolutely unnecessary to have all of those long N-S routes.

I think Manhattan's avenue blocks could be shorter. It has obviously worked very well, so I don't think there is any evidence that they got it wrong... but it probably would be a better pedestrian experience if they were half as long. They could have done this without taking away developable land by making the avenues more narrow.

pj3000 · #7 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 4:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think Manhattan's avenue blocks could be shorter. It has obviously worked very well, so I don't think there is any evidence that they got it wrong... but it probably would be a better pedestrian experience if they were half as long. They could have done this without taking away developable land by making the avenues more narrow.

Sure, I agree.

I was just pointing out that if it were flipped around 90 degrees like the OP suggests... long blocks on the long axis of the island... it would be ridiculous, requiring one to travel multiple times the distance between two nearby points. If you lived in the middle of the block on one of the long N-S avenue blocks, in order just to get to a point on the next avenue over, you'd have to travel all the way down or up your avenue to the next E-W cross street, and then back up or down the next avenue over to the point that you want to get to. Travel distance could be 10-15x or more of the actual distance between two points.

craigs · #8 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 8:15 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Because it was assumed that most traffic would forever be east-west - the hauling of cargo back and forth between ships docked on opposite sides of the island.

Yes, this is what I've been taught.

pj3000 · #9 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 9:09 PM**

^ not sure who taught you that. It’s simple “lay of the land”. That is the reason. Period. It is very basic geometry to determine the most efficient use of of a narrow rectangle.

Read about Manhattan planning in the early 1800s -1810s. It had zero to do with ships being docked. The layout predates shipping above 14th street by decades.

Stay Stoked Brah · #10 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 10:46 PM**

One problem with Manhattan is the lack of alleys that would be used for trash collection and some utility lines. The piles of garbage on trash day would be in the alleys instead of the sidewalks abutting the streets and aves.

Stay Stoked Brah · #11 Posted **Oct 10, 2020, 10:48 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by The North One

Manhattan's grid is the way it is because well it wasn't planned at all. It was simply laid out for the city to sell land without any thought to it.

Columbia’s Peter Marcuse famously said that it's: “one of the worst city plans of any major city in the developed countries of the world”

Lower Manhattan, but the rest of it is incredibly organized and planned long before any development took place.

M II A II R II K · #12 Posted **Oct 11, 2020, 3:00 AM**

A better question is why weren’t the streets given actual names instead of numbers which is only useful for navigational purposes.

pj3000 · #13 Posted **Oct 11, 2020, 1:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

A better question is why weren’t the streets given actual names instead of numbers which is only useful for navigational purposes.

A lot of answering one's own question in this thread...

... "only useful for navigational purposes"

uaarkson · #14 Posted **Oct 11, 2020, 4:36 PM**

Intentional or not, Manhattan's grid wound up having the most intensely productive development pattern in the West. I think Central Park was the real stroke of urban planning genius. That park turned farmland into mansions before it was even finished.

wanderer34 · #15 Posted **Oct 11, 2020, 8:18 PM**

I would say that the main reason why the numbered street blocks are longer than the numbered avenues is because Manhattan is longer N to S than it is wider E to W. Below 14th St, each neighborhood has it's own distinct grid (Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, Washington Sq, etc.), while you do have some semblances of the old Manhattan in Lower Manhattan from South Ferry to Chambers St.

If you look at how Manhattan developed from Lower Manhattan, which was the first settlement in NY, to Midtown Manhattan and into the Upper East and West Sides all the way to Uptown, it makes a lot of sense to have more E-W streets than N-S avenues due to Manhattan's geography.

mrnyc · #16 Posted **Oct 12, 2020, 6:57 AM**

well, its a rectangle, so it doesn’t take much to imagine how the streets should be most efficiently built. of course thats modern perspective though. meaning for nyc after the 1700’s.

but anyway — op this is what you are looking for:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comm...7_Plan_of_1811

Quote:

Originally Posted by The North One

Manhattan's grid is the way it is because well it wasn't planned at all. It was simply laid out for the city to sell land without any thought to it.

Columbia’s Peter Marcuse famously said that it's: “one of the worst city plans of any major city in the developed countries of the world”

the no planning was below 14st. north of that it was highly planned.

proghousehead · #17 Posted **Oct 12, 2020, 2:44 PM**

Many parts below 14th are a maze and reminiscent of European City Centers. Which makes sense as it was built and laid out prior to 1811 grid. That comprises about 20-25% of Manhattans land area.

On top of that, the 1811 grid starts to get wonky above Central Park. Further north you go, the more the grid gives way to some irregular street patterns.

Which this in mind, it’s only really 14th to 110th thereabouts where the grid is that rigid.

It works but of course there could have been improvements. Alleys for one. Maybe 1/2 avenues between the streets to shorten the blocks E/W. But apart from this, the layout has its charms with enough cool landmarks through out to keep it interesting and not overly monotonous (Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Madison/Herald/Times Square, Columbus Circle, Broadway creating some
Interesting angles, Riverside Drive which is a twisty windy street, etc etc

iheartthed · #18 Posted **Oct 12, 2020, 3:01 PM**

Manhattan's grid starts at Houston St., not 14th St.

But this reminds me... A large section of Manhattan below Houston is actually laid out as the OP suggests. Mostly between Houston and Canal St. or Grand St.

I suspect that sunlight was a huge reason for the grid being laid out with long blocks east/west instead of north/south.

proghousehead · #19 Posted **Oct 12, 2020, 3:24 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Manhattan's grid starts at Houston St., not 14th St.

But this reminds me... A large section of Manhattan below Houston is actually laid out as the OP suggests. Mostly between Houston and Canal St. or Grand St.

I suspect that sunlight was a huge reason for the grid being laid out with long blocks east/west instead of north/south.

Grid is only on east side below 14th. The west village is maze like in places and has nothing to do with 1811.

sopas ej · #20 Posted **Oct 12, 2020, 3:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by uaarkson

Intentional or not, Manhattan's grid wound up having the most intensely productive development pattern in the West. I think Central Park was the real stroke of urban planning genius. That park turned farmland into mansions before it was even finished.

Interesting thing about Central Park, the mansions started surrounding it before it was finished because Central Park was originally meant for wealthy people. Most of the population of Manhattan was on the lower end; Central Park was created away from the big population center. Of course anyone could go to it, but they would have to get there somehow. Obviously subways didn't exist back in the early/mid-1800s; to easily walk to Central Park, you had to live next to it; otherwise, you had to get there by some means of private transportation---ergo, to easily get to it, you had to have money for omnibus fare, or you rode a horse there, and back then, aside from maybe farmers, only wealthy people owned horses---it costs money to house and feed and take care of horses. And the "leisure activities" that Central Park was designed for catered to the wealthy, like pleasure horse-riding bridle paths and paths for privately-owned carriages, for pleasure rides. Didn't the "Once around the park, James" and "Home, James, and don't spare the horses!" expressions, come from this? So there's a bit of irony about Central Park, with people nowadays thinking that that part of Manhattan is very pedestrian-oriented, when originally, to get to Central Park easily, you had to get there by some form of private transportation.

And, the creation of Central Park actually displaced some villages that were established in that part of Manhattan, namely Irish immigrant residents and landowners, and even a settlement of land-owning free African-Americans, called Seneca Village. These communities were all destroyed through eminent domain to create Central Park.