Prompt Cast
The Grid Layout of Manhattan: Pragmatic Design or Soulless Structure?
TLDR The grid layout of Manhattan, influenced by the Greeks and Spanish conquistadors, was seen as a way to bring order and civilization to the city, but some argue that it lacks beauty and organic shape. The commissioners who planned the grid layout did not prioritize public gathering places or green spaces, resulting in a plan that was criticized for its lack of beauty and uniformity.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
The episode is about the commissioners plan of 1811 that laid out Manhattan as a grid with numbered avenues running north to south and numbered streets running east to west.
04:54
The Manhattan grid is a numbered system that makes it easy to navigate the city, but some people find it soulless and lacking in organic shape.
09:24
The grid layout of Manhattan is often criticized for its lack of beauty and uniformity, but some architects and critics argue that it is a pragmatic and courageous design that accommodated for the city's massive growth.
14:30
The grid layout of Manhattan was influenced by the Greeks and the Spanish conquistadors, and it was seen as a way to bring order and civilization to a previously disordered and wild indigenous town, although it may not have been appreciated by the indigenous people.
19:22
The 1811 commissioners plan for Manhattan was a ripoff of an earlier surveying map, and the surveyor who originally plotted out the land was only concerned with dividing it up for sale, not with promoting future growth or development.
24:05
In 1807, the New York state legislature appointed three commissioners to lay out the streets and roads in the city of New York, giving them absolute authority to determine the plan, despite the fact that they were not taken seriously and one of them, John Rutherford, showed little interest or dedication to the task.
28:22
The 1811 commission for the planning of New York essentially stole the grid layout for the streets and avenues from Kazmier Gork's map without giving him any credit, and made some changes such as adding more avenues and widening certain streets.
33:12
The commissioners who planned the Manhattan grid layout likely didn't visit the common lands or took any notes, resulting in a plan that was lazy and ignorant, with no logical reason for the spacing of avenues and a disregard for the inconvenience it caused to those affected by the plan.
38:35
The commissioners did not prioritize the creation of public gathering places or green spaces in their plan for Manhattan, believing that the rivers surrounding the city would suffice, but eventually, the need for green spaces became apparent and Central Park was built.
43:12
The commissioner's plan of 1811 marked the turning point between the unplanned, organic New York and the planned modern New York that we know today.
48:05
No relevant information for summary.
Categories:
Society & Culture
