IMPACT OF STREET PATTERNS ON DEVELOPMENT

AND GROWTH OF NEW YORK CITY IN 19TH AND

20TH CENTURY
Urban Planning and Design
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM

KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY, DHULIKHEL

JUNE, 2021

PRESENTED BY:
Rakchhya K.C.
Prasamsa Pokharel
Ilam Shrestha
CONTENTS
1. History of New York City

2. Evolution

3. Failures and lessons learnt

4. Grid Pattern of New York City

5. City sub-division - Guiding factors

6. Utilities & Transportation layout

7. Impact of Streets in Development and Human Activities.

BACKGROUND OF MANHATTAN
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY

IT’S COLONIZATION

Federal and early America (1776-1854)

• New York city being major seaport made it prime target for British
seizure in 1776
• British army occupied New York city until 1783
• City served as national capital under “Articles of confederation” from
1785 to1789
• City served as national capital under “United States constitution” from
1789 to1790
• In 1811, the “Commissioner’s Plan” established an orderly grid of
streets and avenues for the undeveloped parts of Manhattan Map of ancient NewYork city
• Construction of 363- mile Erie canal in 1817 till 1825
• In 1837, construction began on the Croton Aqueduct
• Massive number of immigrants from Germany and Ireland during the
1840s and 1850s.
 COLONIZATION

Tammany and consolidation (1855-1897)

• Started with the 1855 inauguration of Fernando Wood as the first mayor from Tammany Hall
• In 1857, first landscape park was built in American city called “Central Park”
• American civil war outbreak in 1861-1865
• The Statue of Liberty was built in 1886 as a universal symbol of freedom

The Statue of Liberty Central park- The pond

 COLONIZATION

Early 20th century (1898-1945)

• Many political as well as developmental changes were made in this time

period
• The skyscrapers and tourists attractions were widely publicized
• In 1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx County, making five
counties coterminous with the five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn ,
Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island
• Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world
center for industry, commerce, and communication
• Later on industries were replaced by financial buildings and NewYork Longacre Square, New York City, 1898
became the financial hub.
 SETTLEMENT PATTERN BEFORE GRID PATTERN

“The land is the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon”
- Henry Hudson

• New York had the most cultivable land which was mainly used for cultivation
• Lesser number of houses were built in 1664
• The southern tip of the island of Manhattan was a knot of short streets
• Shaped by local conditions, built piecemeal, and lacked a unifying order

Settlement pattern in 1664

 SETTLEMENT PATTERN BEFORE GRID PATTERN

• Numbers of houses were added as per the need of growing number of population and immigrants in the city
• The rest of the island was a patchwork of farms and meadows, ponds and marshes, laced with meandering
country roads and with ample ground for expansion

Settlement pattern in 1766

Settlement pattern in 1728

 SETTLEMENT PATTERN BEFORE GRID PATTERN

• Further expansion of the grids as per need of the increasing population were made

Settlement pattern in 1811

Settlement pattern in 1797

 SETTLEMENT PATTERN BEFORE GRID PATTERN

• Original design for the streets of Manhattan above Houston Street and below 155th Street
• Was developed by 3 commissioners: Gouverneur Morris, John Rutherfurd and Simeon De
Witt named as “Commissioners plan 1811”
• It was a rectilinear grid, or "gridiron": straight streets and avenues intersecting each
other at right angles
• It consists of Streets and avenues, Public spaces and Randel and William bridges
• The grid had 12 primary north–south avenues and numerous cross streets arranged in a
regular right-angled grid tilted 29 degrees east of true north
• Theodore Roosevelt Park, the Grand Parade, Madison Square Park are some of the public
spaces
 FAILURES AND LESSON LEARNT

FAILURES
• City plan before gridiron was unmanaged and haphazardly placed
• It developed as per the need of increasing population without any
systematic plan
• No considerations of public spaces and open parks
• City was planned linearly not showing any specific purposes
• This plan has governed in the expenditure of untold wealth and has
fixed the characteristics of the people; like a huge gridiron in the city
• It acted as a barrier to some extent to impart the grand metropolitan
air to the town
IMPROVISATION
• The grid had 12 avenues and numerous cross streets arranged in
regular right angled grid tilted 29 degrees
• included parks and plazas like public spaces in the plan
• addition of Randel and William bridges to flourish the landscaping
 Challenges for Elevation in Grid Formation

Fig. 12 Avenue profile showing elevation changes

• Some of the profile were flatten during the formation of grid with some topographic
alterations

Fig. topographic alterations in 2nd Ave looking from 42th street

 19th Century Development: Other
Modifications and Extensions
Addition of Central Park , Broadway, Squares and park
• Picture highlights Central Park’s brilliant relationship with the grid, at once deferring to the grid’s
overarching organizational principles but creating a sharply contrasting pastoral landscape
• Addition of Pre-Grid plans like Broadway that developed more squares and parks that were not
development in plans

Fig. Taken on August 4, 1921, by Lewis McSpaden for the Fairchild Aerial Camera Corporation
REVISED GRID PATTERN OF NEW YORK CITY
PLACEMENT OF CENTRAL PARK

Revised and elongated Central Park

• Central Park had become an 843-acre

oasis on an island with little other
open space, its terrain sealed off from
the rest of the city by a continuous
street wall of buildings.
• Although this site was chosen for the
park in part because the rocky land
there was cheaper to acquire and
more difficult to develop than in the
other neighborhoods initially
proposed,
• the park’s location in the middle of
the island offers a practical symmetry,
as if it were predetermined by the 1811
plan itself.
 19th Century Development: Other
Modifications and Extensions
• Addition of Grid layout above 155th street that Commissioners’
Plan had not planned out
• Inclusion of College campus, Hospital, churches, cultural centers
• New Avenues and Streets development and change in width

• Area:59.1sq.km
• Population:1.632 million

Fig. Revised New York MasterPlan grid after 1860’s modification

 LAYING OUT THE GRID

This one of John Randel's survey bolts marked the location of

Fig. The city blocks of Portland, Oregon; Savannah, Georgia; and what would have been Sixth Avenue and 65th Street; the location
Manhattan shown at the same scale later became part of Central Park
STREETS AND AVENUES
● Every roads are named after Streets and
avenues which are perpendicular to each other

STR
E ETS

E
E NU
AV
AVENUES

● The North-South corridors

● were to be numbered from 1st Avenue on the eastern
edge of the island to 12th Ave on the Westside
● Avenues were to be 100 feet wide to allow for two-way
traffic and were evenly spaced in the middle of the
island, but were placed closer together near the edges
of Manhattan. (The reasoning at the time was that
waterfront land would be more valuable over time and
therefore, there should be more plots on the exterior
than on the interior.)
● Most Avenues were renamed for Lexington, Madison,
Park, etc

Fig. Numbering of avenues and street in plan

Streets
● The east - west corridors
● contains 214 numbered east–west streets numbered
from 1st to 228th, the majority of them designated in
the Commissioners' Plan of 1811
● 60 feet wide with 200 feet between each one.

112th Street East of Broadway

Fig. Numbering of avenues and street in plan

Exceptions for Grid Patterns

BROADWAY
● If the grid embodies a timeless, abstract order,
Broadway represents history and circumstance.
● BROADWAY COMPLETELY IGNORES THE GRID
SYSTEM
● Often consist of squares of plazas due to the
irregular shaped layout.
● Columbus park, Times square , Herold square,
madison square

Fig. Flatiron building in intersection between

Broadway and 175 5th Ave

Fig. Madision Square and Broadway through

Map
Fig. Broad Way
 UP
TO
W N

MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION
Coastal Zone boundary
Brooklyn Battery tunnel park

DO
WN
TO
W N

Fig. Battery tunnel at the lowermost part of the

manhattan Brooklyn Battery
tunnel park
MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

Historic Districts
MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

Subway Map
● 472 stations
● 665 miles of track
● 5.5 million daily riders
● 70% of the people in manhattan do not own a
car
MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

Sidewalk cafe
● Areas where different types of cafe are
permitted
MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

Limited height district

MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

Zoning Districts
 HARLEM
/ UPPER
MANHATTAN

MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

E
ID
S
T-
ES
CENTRAL

W
Zoning Districts
PARK

● Manhattan Island is loosely divided into

EAST SIDE
○ Downtown (Lower Manhattan),
○ Midtown (Midtown Manhattan),
○ Uptown (Upper Manhattan), Fifth Avenue
dividing Manhattan lengthwise into
○ East Side and
○ West Side. MID-TOWN
MANHATTAN

Manhattan Island is bounded by the Hudson River to the

west and the East River to the east. To the north, the
Harlem River divides Manhattan Island from the Bronx and
the mainland United States.

LOWER
MANHATTAN
 RESIDENTIAL

MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

IAL
NT
DE
SI
CENTRAL

RE
Zoning Districts
PARK

● Manhattan Island is loosely divided into

RESIDENTIAL
○ Downtown (Lower Manhattan),
○ Midtown (Midtown Manhattan),
○ Uptown (Upper Manhattan), Fifth Avenue
dividing Manhattan lengthwise into
○ East Side and
○ West Side. ENTERTAINMENT
AND MEDIA HUB

Manhattan Island is bounded by the Hudson River to the

west and the East River to the east. To the north, the
Harlem River divides Manhattan Island from the Bronx and
the mainland United States.

FINANCIAL
HUB
 MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

● LOWER MANHATTAN , LOWER EAST SIDE

● INCLUDES WORLD TRADE CENTER ,
MIDTOWN MEMORIAL , WALL STREET

Fig. Wall Street on 1-9th st

 MANHATTAN SUBDIVISION

● MAJORITY OF ENTERTAINMENT AND MEDIA

CENTER

Fig. Times Square at junction of Broadway and

seventh Avenue
 MANHATTAN SUB-DIVISION

Metropolitan museum of Art across the street

from Central Park ( 200 Central park)

Fig. Guggenheim Museum 1071 Fifth Avenue on the

corner of East 89th Street in the Upper East Side
neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
IMPACT OF STREETS IN DEVELOPMENT AND ACTIVITIES.
New York Buildings acc to Age
New York Buildings acc to Height
New York Buildings

Central Park Tower Empire State Building

Height: 1,550 ft. Height: 1,250 ft. Finished in 1931
Luxury Residental Skyscraper

Manhattan Skyline

432 Park Avenue Chrystler Building

Height: 1,396 ft. Height: 1,046 ft., Art Deco
Apartments Apartments
New York Buildings acc to Building Class
Evolution of Grid

• The urban development patterns of Manhattan saw the infinite grid as fitting for accommodating growth.
• Various block morphologies as well as different infrastructural typologies are identified, analyzed, and
categorized as a means of projecting the possibility of the grid in the urban form of Manhattan.
Transportation Layout
Urban Hierarchy
How the Grid Interacts with Infrastructure
How the Grid Interacts with Infrastructure
BLOCK MORPHOLOGY
Geometric Analysis of Various Block Typology Formation
BLOCK MORPHOLOGY
Geometric Analysis of Various Block Typology Formation
Hudson Park and Boulevard are key features
of the redevelopment of the Hudson Yards,
an industrial area on the far West Side
between 28th and 43rd Streets.. Landscape
architect Michael Van Valkenburgh’s design
bisects the 800-foot block between Tenth
and Eleventh Avenues with a mid-block park
and flanking streets from 33rd to 39th Street.
Hudson Park and Boulevard are not aligned
with the grid; they tilt slightly to the northeast,
the diagonal orientation creating a less
formal composition while providing
convenient access to new subway stations
along the route.

Context Vision for Hudson Park &

Boulevard, New York City, 2009
 The Benefits of Short Blocks

Diagrams of walking patterns from Jane Jacobs

Jacobs advised that shorter blocks are better blocks. With shorter blocks come more intersections, and the corner,
the pedestrian corollary of the intersection, creates a valuable point of human interaction. The corner, in her view, is
where neighbors bump into each other or stop to chat, ultimately leading to social cohesion. The shorter blocks
diagrammed here indeed produce more corners per unit of square measure, but they also create more paths.
Transportation

Most of people in NewYork Uses public Transportation

• Rails
Rails are used for longer routes
NYC suburban train, Staten Island Railway, New Jersey Transit, Port
Authority Trans-Hudson, Long Island Railroad and Metro North Railroad.
• Buses
The New York Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) operates a fleet of
almost 6,000 buses in New York, which cover over 322 routes.
Buses in New York are generally classified as local or express.
• Subways
With 472 subway stations, the New York City subway is the largest subway
system in the world as measured by total number of stations.
• Taxis
The iconic yellow taxi is certainly a popular way to get around the city
with residents and visitors alike.
• Water Ways
There are a number of other passenger water services in New York City,
including the NY Waterway, the well known Staten Island Ferry and the
New York Water Taxi.
• Walking and Bicycle

Peak Hour Bus route of NewYork

Movement on foot

As the city density of NewYork is high it

promotes the walking and public transit riding
and increasingly bicycling.

The horizontal travel between the places in

Newyork from central streets to the edge is
10-20minutes and most substations are found
less than 20 minutes walk away from any place.

More promotion of pleasant links in the grid is

being promoted to make and provide the
environment that is pleasant and enjoyable.
Transportation: One Way System

Public domain Beginning in the early 20th century, the idea of a one-way system was considered a method of
optimizing traffic flow. The system in use today was proposed in this plan developed by the Department of
Traffic Engineering in 1949. The report states, “The traffic capacity of a network of streets is limited by the
capacity of the intersections.”
SUBWAY PLATFORM TYPOLOGY:
MATRIX OF DIFFERENT
SUBWAY CONDITIONS
SUBWAY PLATFORM TYPOLOGY:
MATRIX OF DIFFERENT SUBWAY CONDITIONS
Streets, Bridges and Subways
Functional Areas
The establishments which do their business
together or share customer or service very
frequently tends to locate together in the
same Neighbourhood.

In the Midtown Areas, there are functional

clusters, the theater district, garment center,
and international and public institutions

Planning well in the grid and new

development wisely helps to compliment the
area and its functional groupings.
Times Square
Case Study of 42nd Street
Individual Movement System

The diagram shows the stage wize

development of roads and routes showing
the movement systems in the map of
NewYork. The use of collector streets and the
increase in more pedestrian oriented streets
is seen in the later phase of the
development.
The taxi cab occupy much space as pubic
vehicles are used most in NewYork

4 pedestrain oridented east west street with

little or no taxi and auto traffic and two
north south pedestrian streets Fifth Avenue
and Broad way has focused in landscape
development and little or no traffic

The arterial streets serves mostly autos and

service vehicles with less pedestrian traffis
Rethinking the Grid

As a general principle, the selection of thoroughfares prioritizes convenient access to all places in the city while taking into account
existing public transportation systems, large housing complexes, and other deeply rooted infrastructures.
They would not interrupt large parks, housing complexes, or civic and cultural centers that occupy multiple blocks.
All the elements combined—dedicated car and
bus lanes, bicycle lanes, and
pedestrian-friendly spaces—take up less space
compared to existing layouts. Avenues would
reclaim 24 feet; wider streets, 16 feet; and
narrow streets, 8 feet. In the reclaimed space,
new amenities could be provided, such as
pop-up shops, food and beverage venues, or
flexible work spaces.

Paving would differentiate the car lanes from

the rest of the street, to assist with navigation
and prevent inadvertent drifting. S
 Issues
Unidirectional Infrastructure
• Although the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 outlined how
the rest of the island should be developed, such
ambitious plan did not happen overnight.
• Because of the island’s  North-South orientation and its
original settlement location, the city could only grow to
the north.
• All the necessary infrastructure are displaced in the long
direction as a means of servicing the whole island. Most
of main traffic arteries, highways, subway lines, and
railroads emphasize the North-South direction.
• Such gestures -- while facilitating ease of movement in
the long direction -- cause inconvenience for East-West
movement.
• Street and block dimensions also reflect dominance of
North-South axis.
• Because the width of a Manhattan block is typically two
to three times longer than its length, the movement in
the East-West direction is seemingly less frequent than
the North-South direction.
• Furthermore, traffic flow along the streets are much
more ‘obstructed’ than that along the avenues.
Issues

ISSUE 2: Unspecific Neighborhood

The way buildings would orient in the city grid and the streets
and avenues did not have ani specific differences and specified
designs but shares similarity.

Surely, key buildings and landmarks would play a role. But the
symmetric nature of the urban block and parcel layout based on
a generic grid have promoted developments that are uniform in
character.

Although this notion of evenness and anti-directionality have

expedited Manhattan to expand and develop successfully in
relatively short period, it has nonetheless produced an urban
form that could be copied and pasted infinitely.

Different neighbors and districts display only subtle and

nuanced variation of urban experience and these minor
differences are not even intentional.
THANKYOU