This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human I survived nine months in captivity and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the survivor files. Every week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with the Elizabeth Smart on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're Bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture. With your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of over thought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed. Listen to pro society on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hota Kotby, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hota Kotby. You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time in space, you're hired to fill the space with you. Listen to Joy 101 with Hota Kotby on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everybody, it is on our COVID timeline June 18th, 2020. And I am here to introduce the episode on the Manhattan grid. I loved love this episode. I think as most people know by now, I, in particular, am pretty obsessed with not just New York, like I love New York as a town. But the inner workings of New York and the garbage collection and the male delivery and building that city up from the ground up, which is what this episode relates to is how they laid out that Manhattan grid. And here's one thing I remember from it and here's a fun tip if you're traveling to New York. They use spikes in the ground. I think iron spikes to map out that grid and you'll learn that in this episode to follow. You know, so they knew where the streets and the street corners would meet up in that big rectangle. And to this day, you can still find some of those. The only place I know about them, I'm not sure if they're in on the streets anymore at all. It seems highly unlikely, but I know you can find them for a fact in Central Park here and there in the rocks. Those big giant boulders there because I learned about these and when I was in New York sometime between June 18th, 2020 when we released this. And now I can't remember if it feels like it's a few years ago, I saw one of those spikes. And I think I talked about that on a later episode, but it thrilled me to no end. And I geeked out and told everybody I was with what that was and what it represented. And it was a real thrill for me, no lie, just a spike in the rock. I thought it was super cool. So check this episode out on The Manhattan Grid. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to The Podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff You Should Know. Another in our endless annals of New York City Edition. That's right. This is a pretty interesting episode I think and my favorite part about it, this was Dave Ruiz, one of our writers helped put this together and Dave is clearly annoyed about this whole thing. And I think it's hysterical how many times he gets annoyed by the laziness of the commission. I have to say I agree with Dave too. I was annoyed by it as well. I think it's always annoying when you see somebody like have a great opportunity and just pee it away, you know what I mean? Yeah, and we should also point out Dave got a lot of his information from a really wonderful book called City on a Grid colon. How New York became New York by Gerald Kepple? Not Gerald McCraney, different Gerald. Right, or is it a couple? I think it's Kepple if it's K-O-E. That's what I was going with those Kepple. Yeah, I'm going to get this book though. This is right at Malik because I'm obsessed with the history and the sort of formation of New York City as we know it today. Yeah, where did you get the idea for this episode? Just my constant desire to learn about Manahatta and how that became eventually Manhattan that we know and love. Okay. I'm just fascinated by it. I love it. I love everything about it. This is definitely a big chapter in it because what we're talking about is the plan called the commissioners plan of 1811 that basically laid out Manhattan as we know and understand and love it today. Everything north of Houston Street, I should say. Yeah, and here's sort of a quick primer is Manhattan above Houston is almost a perfect grid. Broadway kind of screws everything up. But you know, great street, but it's just Broadway is like I'm not following any rules. So I'm going to confuse people. But aside from that, it's pretty much a grid of 11 numbered avenues that run north to south generally speaking. Then you've got Lexington Park and Madison avenues. And then 200 and this was at the time numbered streets running roughly east to west. And if you want to get a little more granular than that, the southernmost street in the east villages east first as you would imagine. The northernmost is 220th street as we live in Brits today in Inwood. Well, that's on the island technically in Manhattan. If you're talking about the burrow, it goes up to 227th, I believe. Right. And if you want to go through the Bronx, you go all the way up to 263. Man, that's crazy. You've got so many streets. That's so many streets. You've got an 263 streets. You've got an east and west signifier which says, and this is sort of a dummy's guy to getting around New York for the first time too. If you, you know, broke your smartphone. And you also don't want to walk around just staring at your smartphone the whole time. No, you're going to miss a lot. Yeah, so try and get a little intuitive feel because it's really easy to get around if you know this stuff. East and west will signify whether you're an east or west of Fifth Avenue. And then here's a little trick too. Odd number street streets run west, even numbers streets run east. So if you come out of a subway and you know which way north, south, east and west are, then you will never do the thing that I always do and walk in the wrong direction trying to go up or down. Yeah, because that's the thing. Like if you know what direction you're facing and you know where you're trying to go and where you are right now, you can basically make your way anywhere in Manhattan above Houston street. Yeah, and if you're like me and you have no idea ever what's north, south, east and west, I don't either, I don't either. I had an easy time in LA because LA has the sun. Well, they have they have that but they also have geographical landmarks that make it super easy to tell which way north and like the Hollywood sign and the hills and stuff like that. Is that real? Is the Hollywood sign real? So that makes it a lot easier in New York when I come out there all those big tall buildings. I never know. I can never come out and say like, well, that's north. But if you know that stuff and you know that the even numbered streets run east, the odd ones run west, then you can, you won't walk in the wrong direction for a block and then get there like I do and go, we should have gone the other way. Yeah, because depending on what direction you're walking, if you're walking north or south, going the wrong direction and a block isn't that bad. But if you're going east or west, it's real bad. Well, because they're very long blocks going east to west and that's all part of that commissioners plan that was laid out in 1811. And on the one hand, you know, we've kind of hit upon the pros and the cons of it that it's easy to get around, which is really saying something because New York is absolutely huge. But you could make it from one end to the other without a map just knowing that it's on a grid and how the grids laid out even roughly. But the problem is it's on a grid and a grid is one of the least organic shapes around. And because this grid stretches over almost all of Manhattan, most of Manhattan for sure. It's viewed by a lot of people as kind of soulless and canyon-esque because you're just totally surrounded almost constantly by big imposing buildings, all of these right angles, which it feels like a very built environment. And until Central Park came along, which we did an episode on in what the 1850s or 60s. Like that was it. That was New York. There was nothing but that built environment. I got a few more of my things. Oh, okay. Let's have a look. Manhattan's about 13 and a half miles long. And then so this grid makes sense. But then once you get north of 59th Street, you start to get like Atlanta does and a road will just change names out of nowhere. know where Atlanta is very famous.
for that. People get very confused here. This is very confusing also because the road will change names, but one of the names peach tree will still be there, but it's a totally different street. Right. And it does not help things. That's right. So north of 59th, avenues on the west side change names, but avenues on the east side do not. So eighth becomes central park west, ninth becomes Columbus Avenue, tenth becomes Amsterdam Avenue, and eleventh becomes west end avenue. What about avenue of the Americas? Well, that's six, right? Or is that seventh? Oh, man. I thought I think it's six. I think it's six. But that's really not a name change. That's just that's something that the tourist call it. Right. I remember you making fun of me when I call it that. Did I really? Yeah. That sounds about right. It was really jarring. And then to get people really confused between third and fifth avenue, there are three avenues instead of what you would think would be one because Lexington Park and Madison fall between those. Yeah. And then south of 23rd, you've got your lettered avenues, ABC and D, which is alphabet city. So you wouldn't need to ever pull out a map. You just have to stand in the middle of New York and listen to the first like 10 minutes of this episode and you'll find your way no problem. All right. Should we get into this? He said people don't like the grid. There are a lot of people. I mean, what did Walt Whitman call it? Ike, I think. No, I think he said he called it one perpetual dead flat. Yeah. And streets cutting each other at right angles are certainly the last things in the world consistent with beauty of situation. How about this one from Edith Wharton. Rectangular New York, this cramped horizontal grid iron of a town without towers, portacos, fountains or perspectives, hide bound in its deadly uniformity of mean ugliness. Yeah. I like hide bound. That's great. That's great word. And mean ugliness definitely captures like a certain sense of New York, depending on your mood or mindset, you know. Yeah. There's one guy named Peter Marqueuse, who's an architecture critic. He said that the grid layout of Manhattan was one of the worst city plans of any major city in the developed countries of the world. Right. But some people love it. Some people said it was pragmatic. Some people said it really accommodated for the one thing it needed to accommodate for, which was massive growth. Right. Let me see here an architect named Raphael Vinno, Vinno Lee, who's I think a modern architect, not modern, I just mean current architect. Right. But he may do modern work who knows. He said the grid is the best manifestation of American pragmatism, pragmatism, in the creation of urban form. And then in 1978, a Dutch architect named Ram Kuhl has said that the grid was the most courageous act of prediction in Western civilization, clearly talking about the growth. Yes, but courageous act, that's like a hard-to-tack talk right there. So the most part from what I understand, and definitely Dave says the same thing, most New Yorkers, especially born and raised New Yorkers, are not happy that that's how their city is laid out, that there's a lot of room for improvement. Yeah. Your experience too. Sure, Central Park is great, but as we'll find out, they didn't really plan for green spaces, and New York has done their best to carve them out since then. But let's get into this commission. Well, let's talk about Grids first. Do you want to? Yeah. All right. Do you want to take a break and then talk about the Grids' story? Yes. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and health captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the survivor files. You just remember this low-taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. Their story is about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, and that is the Trojan horse, whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro's Society on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B, I'm Julie Piñero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people, and they were like, "You smile good, that's not a lot of people smile around here." It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is, and not the lies your soul about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So New York didn't invent the grid as much as they liked to boast that they did. They did not. In fact, a grid layout of a city goes back to that Indus Valley civilization that, for some reason, keeps popping up in the last year or so. I guess they're going to make a comeback or something like that, but they've just been coming out all over the place. What was it, Chuck? Did they invent the zipper? I don't think it was a zipper. Indigo? There's been a number of them, but anyway, at least 5,000 years ago, the Indus Valley civilization was using the grid layout to create a Mohanjo Daro, which was a 750 acre city on a grid. Then shortly after that, the Greeks said, "I really like this." In fact, there's a Greek thinker and mathematician named Hippodamus, who's known as the father of city planning, and he was bullied for grids too. Yeah, if you have a grid, people still call that the Hippodami in plan, which is kind of great, all these years later, to still get recognized for your grid work. Yeah, if you're ever talking to somebody and they refer to a grid as a Hippodami in plan, that person knows what they're talking about. Or listen to this show. It's one in the same, basically. You're going to say that. Let me see the conquistadors of Spain. They kind of had a habit of coming in, conquering, and then having their template in place to create these grids is what they call the law of the Indies. They would sort of just come in, set up shop. You got a town with a big central plaza, and then a grid surrounding that central plaza. They use that for everything, from Lima to Los Angeles. This took me back in my mind to, "What was the name of that colonial town in Guatemala that we visited?" Yeah, I know what you mean. It was wonderful. Driving crazy, it really was wonderful. One of the most beautiful towns I've ever been in. But it had a central plaza with a fountain. It was a much smaller town, but now that I think about it, it was laid out on a grid too. It was part of that law of the Indies that you were mentioning. This is how you build the town. Apparently, the reason that they use that law, in town after town after town, that they just basically took over and said, "This is ours now, it's Spain's," is applying a grid.
did was kind of a metaphor for applying order and civilization to a formally disordered and wild indigenous town, which makes sense from a colonizer's perspective, but I'm sure it sucked from the indigenous person's perspective. Like everything else. Yeah. That's what this stupid right-angle stuff. So New York City comes along, Philadelphia had been laid out in a grid by William Penn, very deliberately though, and that grid was kind of roomy and spacious, because William Penn did not like the congestion of London. No. But again, Philly, very much purposeful. Same with DC, too. Yeah. Boy, DC has kind of a crazy grid. Yeah, but once you understand it, it makes total sense numbers and letters. Yeah. But it takes a little more, it takes more getting used to the New York, too, from my experience and what I understand. Yeah, for sure. So the commissioners plan of 1811 is really sort of the demarcation point between what was first New York, New Amsterdam, and then what we now know as Manhattan, because anyone who's ever seen, almost said games of New York, gangs of New York, knows that those were crazy days down there in Lower Manhattan, and things just sort of sprouted up organically from the river upward, as far as the layout and the design, and you know, you can still feel that when you go down to Lower Manhattan, which is why I love the villages now. I think it's just, I mean, I like the simplicity of the grid, but I think what I love about Lower Manhattan is how organic it feels. It's a jumble, and I mean, it's a jumble for a reason, because those streets largely follow these original organic paths that the Dutch settlers and earliest English settlers basically said, "Oh, we need to get from the waterfront up, you know, to the common land," or whatever. Let's go this way. Here's a good path. Yeah. And this path happens to meander around a salt marsh, and we avoid having to go up a hill by going around this way. So it's kind of like meandering, and it's definitely locked in time from those streets down there in Lower Manhattan. I like it too, but it is very easy to be like, "Are you sure we're going the right direction still? It's very easy to get lost in those, because it isn't at all a grid." Yeah. I've spent enough time in Lower Manhattan now to where I can land market. It's just familiar enough to me, to where I kind of know this block and that block, so I know where I'm going. You mentioned something important. I don't think we've even kind of said that New York was not all this just big one, big flat slab 13 miles long that we love today, because you can walk forever without ever getting out of breath, because it's not Seattle. New York was swampland, and it had hills, and marshes, and creeks, and rocks, and it was kind of wild east coast territory. Yeah. I mean, the reason that those marshes, and the ponds, and hills, and stuff aren't there anymore is because of this 1811 commissioners plane, it basically said, "Terid all down, fill it all in, build this over it." And they did. That's the most astounding thing as they did, that they, you know, as we'll see, they passed a law that basically said, "We're going to appoint a commission of three people, they're going to come up with a plane." Three people. So whatever they come up with is law. It can't be challenged in court, we're not going to back it up and change it in any way, and they really didn't, as bad as the plan was in almost every way, they really stuck to it. But the thing that struck me, I had no idea about this, was that the 1811 commissioners plan was just a ripoff of another earlier surveying map that basically provided the basis of this, of the commissioners plan. Not even the basis of it, they were like, "Oh, we'll take this as a starting point." They just said, "We'll take this, print it, and put our names on it, and that's ultimately what happened." Yeah, so pre-revolutionary war, most of Manhattan was in that lower third of the island, and we got into big time debt because of the Revolutionary War. And so the city said in the 1780s, "All right, here's what we got to do. We own tons of land, a publicly owned land, and all this marshy, kind of, reedy, rocky, pondy area. It's not developed. Let's sell this stuff off and make some dough. It's called the Common Lands, and we need somebody to get in there and just sort of, you know, survey this and plot it all out so we know exactly how to best sell this." Yeah, so they hired a guy named Kazmir, Theodore Gurk, that's how I'm going with this Gurk? Sure. It's not a cucumber, it's a Gurk in. Do you remember Mr. Cabbagehead from Kids in the Horror? Sure. Well, this had nothing to do with that, right? All right. So this survey actually went through the Common Lands, like basically what we understand is all of Manhattan between Houston and North Harlem. He just went across and broke it into 500 acre parcels. He had a 66-foot chain on his surveying poles, and so he said, "Well, I'll just use that as the basic measurement for the widest street, 66 feet is what it's going to be." I think he said 500 acre parcels, weren't they five acre? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Bigger, bigger. That's a little bit of a difference. They were five acre parcels, so that's even more work. There's 100 times more work than what I described. That's right. But he laid him out as a grid because this guy wasn't out to say, "Here's how Manhattan should be built." Right, right. This is the best way to promote the future of growth in Manhattan. No, that was not his charge. His charge was like, "Hey, let's just divide this stuff up and sell it." He had some interesting constraints. They had to be five acres. They had to have a central road that all of these could access fairly easily. And then he had a survey chain. It's crazy to think about this was one of the things that informed what is modern New York. His survey chain was 66 feet, so he said, "All right. That's how wide the road is." Yeah, exactly. So I think that was like the widest road, the central access road. He called that one middle, and now I believe that's fifth avenue is middle. What was originally middle road back in 1796? Yeah. That's adorable. So he carved this place up into these plots that are 200 feet on the eastern west boundaries of it. So going up and down, running north, south, but if you're on the plot, it would be on the east side of the plot and the west side of the plot. If that was not confusing before, it is now. And then across, the width was 920 feet. That was the, those were the plots. He said, "Here you go. There's a bunch of them up there, but I've carved up all of these common lands, and you can start selling them if you want." Yeah, did you mention the names of the other two roads? Oh, yeah. He said, "I'm going to put two more in of these 66 feet wide roads," and he had some very clever names for them. Yeah. One was middle, remember. Yeah. The one to the east. He named east. Yeah. And the one to the west. He named west. Yeah. Which makes sense if you're looking at it from, if you're on the middle road to the east is the east road to the west of the west road, but they run north south. Right. Man, I hate directions. And like you said, that was fifth in the center, so that's now fourth, fifth and sixth south. Right. Or fourth avenue, fifth avenue, and the avenue is a real mess. You know, you're really not supposed to say that. What a jerk. I can't believe it said that. You didn't say it like that. I didn't. I just made sure that you waited until a crowd had gathered and really laid into me. I think I remember it. Was that our first trip to New York? Probably. Yeah. Probably. That's funny. We've been back a couple of times since then. Has the team, huh? Yeah. I know. I've got some really great memories of New York. I miss it. Yeah. It's been a while. 2021. We will see you again. Yes. We will, New York. Don't you work. At least I hope so. There are no guarantees, right? No. We will see New York again. So, do we take another break? I feel like you're still a lot. There's still a lot. We should keep going for now, I think. All right. So, in 1807, this is when the New York state legislature said, you know what? We need to, like, we're growing here. It's clear that this southern tip of Manhattan is just the beginning. So they passed a bill that they described as an act of relative, an act relative to improvements, touching the laying out of the streets and roads in the city of New York and for other purposes. Right. Which made sense. But, like I said, this law, they decided to just vest absolute authority into these three commissioners and said, we're going to follow whatever they come up with, whatever they that seems to them most conducive to public good. We're just going to take on its face that it is most conducive to public good and just go with it. And that's crazy that it was just three people and that it wasn't, like, 10 teams of three people submitting the best designs that then would be gone over and voted on, like. Yeah. It's really weird. No one took it seriously, weirdly enough. It's very odd. So who were these guys? So there were three commissioners appointed. What was Governor Morris? His first name was Governor.
He was one of the founding fathers. He wrote a lot of the Constitution, including the preamble. He had a peg leg. He lost his leg in a carriage accident, although there's rumors that it was something else. But he was known as a, Dave puts an energetic philanderer. But he was apparently a very likable Benjamin Franklin-esque kind of dude who seemed to be fairly smart, but had really no understanding of surveying as far as I can tell. No, then his nephew and law, John Rutherford, he was a landowner in New Jersey, in fact, I think the largest landowner in New Jersey at the time. And by all accounts, it looks like this was pure nepotism. He was late for meetings. He was not especially interested even to the annoyance of Governor Morris. All the reasons to not exercise nepotism. This guy brought to the table is one-third of this commission who's figuring out how to lay out the plan for New York City. That's right. And then the third guy, Simon Lebonne, no, no, no, Simeon Dewitt, excuse me. And this guy actually knew what he was doing. He was a really very respected accomplished surveyor, worked with George Washington. I think eventually became the, which I didn't even know was a thing, was the official surveyor for the Continental Army, and then the surveyor general of New York State. Right. So he knew what he was doing, which makes his role all the more shameful, that he didn't say like, oh, well, we really got to, we got to get cracking. It's been three years, and we've got four years to do that type of thing. Maybe he did, though. Who knows? He might have been completely run over by these other two chumps. Oh, and he just got shouted down, I guess. I don't know. Well, at the very least, Governor Morris was also one of the founding members of the commission that created the Erie Canal, which was for a very long time considered one of the greatest public works projects in the history of America, certainly in the history of New York State. And that kind of energy and imagination and drive just did not make it to this 1811 commission for the planning of New York. I wonder if he, I mean, this sounds cynical, but I wonder if he literally was like, man, that Erie Canal project really was a big bummer in how hard we had to work in, let's just kind of, hey, look at these maps at this guy drew to sell off New York, let's just use those. Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's kind of what they did, like they had four years, or they took four years, I'm not sure how long they had, but they took four years from 1807 to 1811 to turn in their report. Four years of meeting sporadically true, but they still met over this four year period. They came up with an 11 page report to lay out these 13 miles in length, not even square miles of Manhattan, these common lands all the way from house and street up to North Harlem. They came up with 11 pages to explain their map and their map really made sense as a grid, but again, they stole the grid from Kazmir Gork, I can't remember what I called them before. Gork. I'm going with Gork now, okay, sure, but they didn't give them any credit for it whatsoever. No, I mean, I don't want to go so far as to call it a tracing project, but they borrowed pretty heavily. Like the streets and the avenues were basically the exact same when, you know, earlier you mentioned the blocks were 200 by 920 feet in Gorks from Gork, right? Yeah, this had the exact same layout and that was no accident. No, and they were in virtually the same spot. They did do some stuff, you know, they didn't just take his map like you were saying and trace it and call it their own. They made some changes to it. They created, instead of the three Middle East and West, they created 12 avenues running North South and not true North South, but just, you know, for our purposes, North and South. And then they created 155 numbered streets all the way to what? They added this stuff but it's sort of just copy-paste kind of, kind of, but the big thing is, so adding the 12 numbered avenues was a definite change to the Gorks. Gorks. I'm never going to say the same thing twice. But was it? Yeah, because he only had the three. I know, but he just had the three and they were like, well, we need more, so let's just do it. He did all over the place. Sure, sure. Okay, all right. You know what I'm saying? That's fair. I'm willing to die on, so say what you will about him. I think they're lazy schmose, too. All right. And then they took these, they took these cross streets that are formed by the surveying of these blocks and turned them into numbered streets. So avenues running North South, they were the big ones, 155 numbered streets running east to west. They widened the avenues, they said they're going to be 100 feet wide. I guess they had a longer servant chain. Bigger chain. All right. And then they widened some of the cross streets to, I guess, East congestion. I think they widened 15 of them total. Yeah. They, I think the other streets were 60 feet and then 15 of them went to 100 at 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57, 72, 79, 86, 96, 106, 116, 116, 115, 125th, 135th, and 155th. Right. But why? Why those particular ones? There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason because if you notice, they didn't really hit their stride into keeping them separated by 10 cross streets until 86th street. Yeah. So there's not really much rhyme or reason there. And then they only did that for three of them for four of them. And then the streets that they did choose to widen didn't necessarily make much sense one way or the other. Like for example, 71st street was already fairly wide, it was definitely wider than 72nd street. But they decided to make 72nd street the widened cross street rather than 71st. And apparently no one knows why. The closest thing I could find is there's some record in 1857 of somebody having to remove a big rock from 72nd street to widen it. That's funny. Even explainer makes sense because there was a bunch of houses that had to be torn down to make 72nd street widened rather than 71st, which was already wide. And had almost no houses. Exactly. So these guys were just, when you start to compile all the evidence, we'll kind of pay more out. It really seems like these guys didn't even go to the common lands that maybe they were just working from Gurk's map or if they did go to the common lands, they took zero notes or paid zero attention and that all of this came from a place of laziness and ignorance, like not knowing that 72nd was wider than 71st or vice versa would explain that decision more than anything else. Yeah. Another example is if you've ever been on the west side and you feel like, man, these avenues are big, it's because they are. The avenues on the east side are spaced at 650 and 610 feet apart or 610 feet apart. And on the west, they are all 800 feet apart for no reason. No reason at all. Yeah. Doesn't make any sense. Again, it just, it, it seems like they just phone the scene and what's even more astounding is that New York's founding father said, okay, we're going to do exactly what you say without questioning it. Yeah. And actually, we kind of do have the reason if you read closely and we'll tell you the secret reason right after this. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. You just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and I just started screaming they are abducted, stalked, controlled and nearly silenced. Their story is about what it takes to make it out alive, listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story, I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. 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the right place. Hey, this is Ace Davenport and Sean Clements. We host the podcast. Hollywood handbook on the big money players network. Our show is extremely accessible to first time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, AKA the biz and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Not that great. Actually, can you help me can can can you help me shape this? Yeah, how about we flip it on his head? Right? How about we flip this grip? Okay? How what is the surprise one, man? Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott. This entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never let go of that. I have. I would never set expectations for something like that. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I am open to. I'm always going to accept, you know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity. Exuding. I could smell it walking on the hallway to be honest with me. As exactly. That was exactly. No, it's fragile masculinity. Yeah, Ben stiller. No, because a lot of times in out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? Like you're like, oh, it's just so stupid. Everyone's so dumb and fake, right? Fake and also not interested or just like, Oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally, he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood handbook on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Is that for cliffhanger? It was great. I'm still a little tense waiting for you to pay it off. All right, here's the real reason everyone and it all lies in this quote that is pulled from their commission report. If it should be asked why the why was the present plan adopted in preference to any other? The answer is because after taking all circumstances in the consideration, it appeared to be the best. Or in other more proper terms, attended with the least inconvenience. And I think that's the magic phrase right there. That last phrase attended with the least inconvenience and Dave rightfully says what is obvious, which is inconvenient for the three commissioners. Yeah, because their plan was extraordinarily inconvenient for basically everyone involved. Like there was very from the people who were in charge of like making this building this grid or this plan to the people who are already living in places that were torn down 40% yeah, 40% of places were torn down to adhere to this plan this 1811 commission plan. Yeah, that's crazy. And again, when you start to add all the stuff up, it does seem like the least inconvenient for the three commissioners. Yeah. And the fact that if that is true and they just included that is kind of like a cheeky little joke, you know, this guys are. They're not not necessarily burning in hell, but they're probably in purgatory somewhere. I also have a lot of respect for that kind of laziness at times. So the kind that makes fun of itself and public documents. Well, just just is that upfront about about the fact like, you know what? That didn't really want to work too hard on this. So here's here it is. Right. So yeah, it was very inconvenient for everyone but them. They did this because of the growth population they expected. So it sort of made sense, but they even got that wrong. They were wrong by about half of what they thought the growth rate was going to be. Yeah, that's the thing is they were saying like, OK, this is this affords enough population growth to afford a population greater than any other this side of China is how they put it. So they clearly did have at least growth on their mind and that if you build on a grid, it affords for the most growth. It's the easiest to build on right angled structures or the easiest to build and settle and live in. But the thing is is part of that law, the 1807 law that established the commission, charged them with creating public squares. Although it said in size and form and all that in number that the commissioners see fit. Unfortunately, the commissioners didn't see fit to make almost any kind of public gathering places, especially green spaces for mental health, I guess, is what you would call it? Yeah, and their reasoning is kind of kind of BS actually. I'm not sure which one it was. I guess it was Morris that I'm not going to read the whole quote, but he basically said, hey, listen, we don't have the sin river or the Thames winding through the middle of town. But what we do have are these two wonderful rivers that just kind of hug man hadn't. And that's enough because everyone's just going to go hang out the river all the time, right? Because it's beautiful and gorgeous and you can swim in it. And the East River and the Hudson River will forever be our green space, basically. Yeah, basically that that was that the city had enough. It didn't need green spaces because of the East and the Hudson rivers. And like in about 40 years, people were like, no, we do. We need to build Central Park. Yeah, which was a savior because I think it says here on their original plan, only 5% of the grid was public green space. And 240 of those 400 acres was a parade ground. Yes, which I didn't know exactly where that was. See you now. I'm not sure. I don't know. I mean, there, you know, there's Washington Square Park. There's some cool kind of central promenades and things like that. And then these, you know, New York's famous for these tiny little slivers of a park, kind of all over the place, but they're small. They are very small, especially compared to the surrounding areas for sure in the buildings. That's why the high line was such a big deal. Yeah, it was a big deal. And I remember not quite grasping why. No, I definitely do because there's just people need that, people need green space. They need nature. They need to be like outside of a built environment, even if it's a built natural environment. Yeah. And Central Park is amazing. And we love it. But that's a that's a long way if you're in Southern Manhattan to get up there. Right. Right. But basically these guys said, you don't need it. Go hang out at the Hudson or the East River. It's so wonderful and lovely. So the there were a lot of people like we said that were really unhappy with this. This was a huge exercise of eminent domain. There were a lot of people on these lands already. Remember Seneca Village that was destroyed to create Central Park. Uh-huh. They managed to survive the 1811 commission. Um, I can't remember how long that was around, but I want to say Seneca Village is around for a good 50 years before it was leveled in the 1850s. So it would have been around on the common lands during this time. Um, but they're like you said, about 39 or 40 percent of homeowners or established buildings had to be torn down. They filled in ponds. They filled in salt marshes. They completely altered the ecosystem of stuff that could have been built around or incorporated had they stopped and thought about how to do that. They just leveled everything and built a grid over it. And so a lot of people were really, really unhappy about this. And they were particularly unhappy that the, um, the city administration was just sticking to this no matter what. And there were a lot of lawsuits and all of them from what I understand were unsuccessful. Oh yeah, for about 60 years, there were tons of lawsuits going on. And I know you said it was a big imminent domain, um, act, but it was, I think, still the largest act of imminent domain in New York City. Yeah. And that includes Central Park and the, uh, how we get our, how they get their water, which was another good episode. Yeah, because I mean Central Park is huge, but it's just a small sliver of this larger area. Yeah. Let's read that this one quote from landowner Clement Clarke Moore. He published a pamphlet, um, about the tyrannical commissioners plan. And in it, it says this, nothing is to be left unmolested, which does not coincide with the street commissioners plummet and level. These are men who would have cut down the seven hills of Rome. Burn big time. Yeah. So, um, didn't matter though. No, it really didn't matter. They just went ahead with it blindly and thoughtlessly and did. And again, like it did accommodate growth, although they underestimated the growth, but it took a little while for this stuff to fill up. Um, this, this plan was delivered in 1811, but it wasn't until 1875 that enough people had started to move in that there were more New Yorkers living above 14th Street than they were living below it. Because remember, I mean, lower Manhattan was where it all began. So that, I mean, it took a little while to fill in. And
didn't even necessarily fill in uniformly by that same year in 1875. There's still 40,000 vacant lots left in this grid plan and that was like about half of the space. Yeah, I love that fact. That's good. Dave has some nice facts here at the end. 1869, the very first apartment building in New York was built, called the Stivosant and they called them, I don't even think they called them apartments at the time. It was called a French flat or a French house. But prior to that, it was, you know, tenement houses and houses. And so the Stivosant is built and everyone thinks it's silly that anyone would want to live in the same building as other people. And they call it Stivosant's folly. But that was at 142 East 18th between Irving Place and 3rd. And it was a huge hit. Like people made fun of it in the newspapers, but people signed up to live there almost immediately it filled up. It was demoed and replaced in 1960. But so this was 1869. It didn't take long though. In 1884, the Dakota was built, which still stands today. So apartment buildings kind of came into fashion. I think probably due to Stivosant's folly. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, it went over so well and so quickly that it really opened the way for more and more to be built. Pretty cool. So one thing that people point to is this commissioners plan of 1811 is just like that same principal or the same significance that the Spanish coming in and imposing a grid over an indigenous settlement was somehow taming the wild or the organic or something like that. There's a this is the turning point between kind of unplanned organic much more harmonious naturally New York and the planned modern New York that we know and love today. This is where it went from one to the other, almost like flipping a switch and granted for it took decades and decades to to realize this plan. But when it when it was delivered and when it was adopted, that was that was it. That that change happened and the transition began. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. I think so too. What else is there for New York? I mean, we figure we got water. We got the subways covered. We got Central Park. We've got this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's see. There can't be much else as far as just the bones of new. Oh, I know what I want to do is maybe how that how the male and the trash work. It's a mirror. Okay. All right. Yeah. We did the rockets once even too. That's right. I mean, we've done a lot of New York topics. It's true. Or maybe we should have moved to a different city. Let's start talking about Des Moines. Holy cow, dude. It almost simultaneously came out of my mouth. Des Moines? Yes. It's so weird. It is weird. It's in the zeitgeist apparently. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Okay. Well, if you want to know more about New York, just start reading and then eventually travel there. They'll give you the all clear when they're ready. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. Hey, guys, my 16 year old son, Owen, is Probs your biggest fan for real. He also is narcolepsy. I appreciate you taking on this topic and bringing some understanding of it to the masses. He was diagnosed with his 10 and it affects every single aspect of his life. I think it is made him wise beyond his years personally and compassionate to other people with invisible struggles, but it still sucks. Yeah. If you ever want to read or hear first-hand accounts from people with narcolepsy, check out Julie Flygare that is F-L-Y-G-A-R-E or Flygare. I'm not sure. What would you say that? Oh, I like the one with flavor, the second one. Flygare? Who is doing all kinds of advocacy for people with narcolepsy, including a scholarship foundation. She founded Project Sleep and Voices of Narcolepsy. She also wrote a great book about her experiences with being diagnosed during law school, called Wide Awakening and Dreaming. When Owen received his diagnosis I reached out to her for help. She sent Owen a care package with a book, a t-shirt, wristbands, a very kind card, etc. to let him know that he's not alone. That is very sweet. I think she deserves an award for the work she's doing. Anyway, a great resource for sure. Thanks for the work that you do. Can we get in a word? We've won a webby before, I think. Well, that's true. Yeah. Sometimes it's fun and entertaining, but sometimes and often it's really important and educational as well. Sincerely, the mom of your biggest fan, and that is from Brooke. Thanks, Brooke, and thanks Owen for listening. It's really good to hear from you guys. And I feel like we should send Owen something, too. Sure. Let's do it, Chuck. We'll figure it out. All right. We can't be shown up by this Flygarey person. No, no, no. Send us your physical address and we'll mail you something. That's right. And in the meantime, thanks for listening. And thanks for being a fan. And thank you for listening. And thank you for being a fan, too. And if you want to get in touch with us like Brooke did, you can send us an email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom and send it off to
[email protected]. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I survived nine months in captivity and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled and merely silenced. Listen to the survivor files with the Elizabeth Smart on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of over thought opinions. Listen to pro society on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hota Kotby, host of the podcast, joy 101 with Hota Kotby. You're not hired just to fill time in space. You're hired to fill this space with you. Listen to joy 101 with Hota Kotby on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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