Manhattan's Grid, Explained

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Manhattan's Grid is a defining feature of New York City's Map, but the origins are pretty mysterious. The author of 'The Greatest Grid', Gerard Koeppel gives some insight.
Gerards book: gerardkoeppel....
Tons more info here: thegreatestgri...
This is a cool map of the neighborhoods of NYC by the NYT: www.nytimes.co...
The NYT article I referenced: www.nytimes.co...
A really detailed map of Randel's survey work: gigapan.com/gi...
Patreon: / danielsteiner

[@Nugcon]

The way New York (one of the biggest cities on earth) was planned like a school group project where everyone procrastinated until last minute before the deadline is incredibly funny

[@VoidVerification]

And it being copied homework essentially

[@Arthurboy777]

Biggest city on earth ? Lmao it doesn’t even cut top 30

[@LoLo1k2k3k]

@@Arthurboy777 so out of thousands of cities in earth it’s in the top 50/100. So…. One of the biggest. Like the comment said.

[@LoLo1k2k3k]

⁠@@Arthurboy777 lmao I just looked it up NYC is at LEAST in the top 15 largest cities in the world

[@AllUpOns]

@@Arthurboy777 As of 2023, New York urban area is the 13th-largest in the world.

[@kristianmorris9738]

It was immediately apparent this plan was thought up the night before their homework was due. Some of the best work is done this way...

[@bholdr----0]

Haha... Yeah, some of us do our best work under pressure, eh? As in: In college, some the papers/articles/studies that I wrote the night before they were due always seemed to get the best reception/grades. 🤔. (One in particular, when I misinterpreted an assignment and had to bang out a twenty-pager in the 14-ish hours before class... Got a full grade, and my prof had it published! (In some utterly obscure etymology/philology journal, but, still: nice... Maybe I ought to procrastinate more!)

[@jopainting1668]

This is not best work, it's an atrocity.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

Something also interesting to mention: Broadway isn't just in Manhattan! It runs from Bowling Green through Manhattan for 13 miles/20.9 km, goes for two miles/3.2 km through the Bronx, and then 18 miles/29 km through Westchester County where it finally ends at Sleepy Hollow! It is the oldest north-south main thoroughfare in New York City, with much of the current street beginning as the Wickquasgeck trail before the arrival of Europeans. This then formed the basis for one of the primary thoroughfares of New Amsterdam, which of course continued under British rule, although most of it did not bear its current name until the late 19th century. Broadway was originally the Wickquasgeck trail, carved into the brush of Manhattan by its Native American inhabitants. This trail originally snaked through swamps and rocks along the length of Manhattan Island. Upon the arrival of the Dutch, the Wickquasgeck trail was widened, and soon became the main road through the island. The Dutch called it the Heeren Wegh or Heeren Straat, meaning "Gentlemen's Way" or "Gentlemen's Street". After the British took over, the part of Broadway in what is now Lower Manhattan was initially known as Great George Street, but the name Broadway was eventually given to its entire length because of its unusual width.

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

These kinda of comments are me absolute favorite. Thank you so much for adding context and value! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@urbangorilla33]

Actually, it goes all the way to Albany. Broadway was extended over three hundred years ago to build the Albany Post Road. Currently it is part of US route 9, which runs to the Canadian border.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

@@urbangorilla33 Technically yes, but beyond Sleepy Hollow, it's no longer called Broadway! So officially, it's only called Broadway between Sleepy Hollow and Lower Manhattan.

[@nicolegarcia7011]

Great contribution to this master piece, when we look to the past in such turbulent times, having a sustancious data is a challenge, but the way this is connected explains a lot the development of a city that it’s closely connected to the financial and status relevance of the family who immigrate to New York especially along the Hudson River, just find out bout Croton-Reservoir keys being hold in the city’s Dam you can find out in the recent exposition of NYC in NYPL (New York Public Library)

[@DeborahBrown-df7bk]

@@AverytheCubanAmericanThough - fittingly - it becomes Broadway again in Albany.

[@christopherstephenjenksbsg4944]

Excellent presentation! I grew up in Chelsea in the 1960s, but went to school in the Village. Chelsea was built on the 1811 grid system; the Village, as you point out, was not. From the time I was old enough to comprehend it, I was struck by that strange transition from the Manhattan grid to the ordered but self-contained planning of the Village. Then there was 7th Avenue South. Even though 7th Avenue South had been driven through the Village some decades before my time, it pushed through the neighborhood rather rudely, with surviving buildings just sliced off at strange angles and some streets, like Bleeker, Barrow, and 7th Avenue South, meeting at strange, extremely acute angles. It really looked like an interloper, and it still does. I think it was one of Robert Moses's early projects, As an aside, many of the landowners were made extremely wealthy by the street grid. In Chelsea, Clement Clarke Moore, who owned the Chelsea estate, was already very well-to-do when the streets and avenues were cut through, but the street grid increased the value of his land exponentially. He brought in an estate manager, James N Wells, to oversee the development of Chelsea beginning in the 1820s. Moore was initially opposed to the 1811 street grid. It required the demolition of his own house, which he loved, to make way for 23rd Street. I am sure all the income from the lots he sold to real estate developers lessened the pain of the bitter pill he had to swallow. Most of the Greek Revival and Italianate row houses in Chelsea were built while Moore was still alive, and most are still there today.

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Fascinating!! Thank u for sharing! I came across a couple stories of land owners becoming extremely wealthy almost by accident. Pretty crazy impact of the grid!

[@christopherstephenjenksbsg4944]

@@DanielsimsSteiner Thanks! Real estate and gentrification seem to be two constants in the life of NYC going back to Dutch days. The Chelsea of my youth was a blue-collar Irish and Puerto Rican neighborhood, with a smattering of artists around the edges. It's gone through several waves of gentrification since. Brownstones that sold for $35,000 in 1970 are now selling for about $3 million.

[@ModernDayRenaissanceMan]

​@@christopherstephenjenksbsg4944 That's everywhere in NY. I grew up in Flushing Queens. My grandparents bought for less than 20,000 in the 60s. They sold for $250,000 in the late 90s. The property is worth nearly 2 million today. I always scold them for making me poor. They moved to Florida as most old people do... & Into a home worth $50,000 which is now worth $100,000 & passed away in debt rather than rent out what would have been a 3 family home. They owned 2 such properties in NY, including the last undeveloped land in Astoria Queens. An apartment building with 2 units built in the 1920s (maybe older), on which now stands the ugliest thing you've ever seen & gone is the garden my great grandparents used to plant yearly. No more fat tomatoes, or roses, or cucumbers, etc. Hell. They could have made money just turning it into a parking lot & renting the spaces...

[@lp-xl9ld]

Growing up in New York, my father told me that in Manhattan, you can never be lost...but you can be in the wrong place. Provided you were north of 14th Street and south of 125th Street. I'd figured out how that was possible...and now I know why.

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

While talking about the origins of NYC streets, the origin of why Canal Street is called such is interesting! Ding ding ding, it's called such because there was once a canal! But there's more than that. The area was once home to Collect Pond, one of the city's few sources of freshwater. In the 18th century, the pond was used as a picnic area during summer and a skating rink during the winter. Beginning in the early 18th century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the pond in order to use the water. For the first two centuries of European settlement in Manhattan, it was the main New York City water supply system for the growing city. It became polluted because of everyone doing their business there, as well as run-off from tanneries. So it was drained via a canal so they could eventually put landfill there. This area is where the Irish first moved to in NYC (because it was all they could afford), which eventually became known as the most dangerous neighborhood in the world, Five Points, because of the area's Irish gangs

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Yess! Thank you for sharing! The collect pond to China town story is endlessly interesting to me 🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@zorkmid1083]

The area is now known as Foley Square, where federal and city courthouses are located. From the most dangerous to a center of the NYC legal system. As for Canal Street, water is still flowing through the "canal". When the Manhattan Bridge was closed for major repairs decades ago, they must've turned off the sump pumps for the tracks now used by the N and Q trains leading up to the bridge. The tracks were flooded with a few feet of stagnant water, until they rebuilt the tracks and roadbed in preparation for the bridge's reopening.

[@johnscanlon2598]

@@zorkmid1083even more dangerous than before

[@RobPtak]

I think you read this book too en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham:_A_History_of_New_York_City_to_1898

[@EvilPeaMia]

As someone from Ireland this is so surreal to me. I live surrounded by green fields, hills, ancient sites, and weird roads that were made to go around the existing landscape. It's quite fascinating to see just how tightly packed and neatly laid out this city is. I've never been to New York, so I only really see snapshots and small areas in films & on TV. This was a great video.

[@Chops95]

Interestingly, Limerick City in Ireland is suggested to be the inspiration/pilot for the Manhattan grid.

[@MannyGrey]

Fun fact; most of the alleyways you see in TVs and movies don't exist in New York City. The scenes where likely filmed in LA or Atlanta for ease of access and expenses since modern NYC has very few alleyways.

[@brad9529]

Melbourne Australia had a similar design layout history but on 1/100th scale. NY is insanely huge, maps make it look small, Central Park by itself is bigger than some CBD's

[@kevinrichards1539]

I grew up "outside" the city by about an our. Most likely how you live. Grew up surrounded by old farms, rock walls in the woods, running around until night fall. My mother would take us to the city once or twice a year. Driving from our house into the hear of "the city" was surreal as a child. I watched as the trees and farms dissolved away with the miles into the concrete jungle. The experience even more dramatic when we would take the train into grand central. From birds and crickets to 27/7 activity, traffic, light etc. I live in Denver now. Been around the world. Lived in NZ. Noting compares to NYC. Nothing. Its worth the visit. I swear. Looking down from a high rise apartment's at 3 in the morning, people everywhere. It shouldnt work. Just to much going on. To many layers. It a different rhythm, and beauty.

[@Leblribrbrrq]

​@@MannyGreyor Vancouver.

[@chrisleonardi712]

If this video was an hour and a half. I’d watch it all

[@offmeds2nite]

You are absolutely killing it Daniel! First with the Boston map video, and now this. I immediately subscribed, and am sharing this with everyone I know 👏

[@yodittesfaye9702]

The landscape along what is now the Park’s perimeter from West 82nd to West 89th Street was the site of Seneca Village, a community of predominantly African-Americans, many of whom owned property. By 1855, the village consisted of approximately 225 residents, made up of roughly two-thirds African-Americans, one-third Irish immigrants, and a small number of individuals of German descent. One of few African-American enclaves at the time, Seneca Village allowed residents to live away from the more built-up sections of downtown Manhattan and escape the unhealthy conditions and racial discrimination they faced there.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

This reminds me of the sophisticated urban planning of Barcelona. Heck, they PIONEERED it! Barcelona's Ildefons Cerdà was the guy who coined the term urbanization and changed the way we think about cities! Constricted by its medieval walls, Barcelona was suffocating as its population overflowed and couldn't handle the density with high mortality rates, until the then unknown Ildefons came up with a radical expansion plan. His plan consisted of a grid of streets that would unite the old city with seven peripheral villages (which later became integral Barcelona neighborhoods such as Gràcia and Sarrià). The united area was almost four times the size of the old city and would come to be known as Eixample. Cerdà decided to avoid repeating past errors by undertaking a comprehensive study of how the working classes lived in the old city. He concluded that, among other things, the narrower the city’s streets, the more deaths occurred. He added gardens in each block, made sure access to services for the rich and poor were equal, and made room for smooth-flowing traffic. The octagonal blocks, chamfered in the corners, were his unique idea to deal with traffic, allowing drivers to see more easily what was happening to the left and right. Cars of course didn't exist then, but when he learned about trains, he figured there would be some sort of thing powered by steam that would use the streets. His gravestone, fittingly, is a model of the Eixample.

[@Georges_IV]

Yoo avery i havent seen you comment in a while

[@vicjames3256]

I lived in Sarrià for 6 months and had no idea about this. Thanks!

[@JConnn]

He just doesn’t miss

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Ily

[@IamNiggler]

What?

[@IamNiggler]

His haircut is cringe

[@JConnn]

@@IamNiggler you picked the wrong one, Kyle Korona.

[@IamNiggler]

@@JConnn lmao 🤣🤣🤣 gay nigga

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

Another street that once acted as a barrier in what's now Lower Manhattan is Wall Street! And no, I'm not talking about the stock exchange. Like how Canal Street is named such because it once had a canal, Wall Street once had a wall! And before the stock exchange, Wall Street was selected for Federal Hall which was both NYC's first City Hall and the US's first Congress when NYC was the nation's capital (hence Federal Hall). Some historians have stated that Wall Street is anglicized from the former "de Waal Straat" (which was the center of a small Walloon community), however this was proven false as "de Waal Straat" is now a section of Pearl Street rather than Wall Street. Wall Street was first known as Het Cingel or "the Belt"! The wall there was built by the Dutch during the first Anglo-Dutch War in the early 1650s because they feared an overland invasion from New England. After the Dutch gave up New Netherland and its capital New Amsterdam in 1674, the wall remained until 1699 in order to expand the city limits! And while we're talking about the Dutch's former presence in Lower Manhattan, Bowery is the English version of bouwerie or bouwerij, an old Dutch word for farm! It connected the farmland on what was then the outskirts of the City to the Wall Street area. Until 1807 it was known as Bowery Lane, but today is simply named Bowery.

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

I’m loving this additional info. Thank you!!

[@newyorknewart]

IT WAS NOT BUILT BY PUP CRAWLING, DRUNKEN SAILORS OR LITTLE FARMERS. IT WAS BUILT BY THE BLACK SLAVES WHO BUILT MOST OF COLONIAL NEW YORK CITY. A BARRIER FOR THE NATIVE TRIBES. NEW YORK WAS A MAJOR SLAVE PORT AND MOST HEAVY AND DANGEROUS CONSTRUCTION: LIKE THE TERRA FORMING AND LEVELING OF THE STREETS AND BLOCKS AND THE INITIAL WORK ON THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE AND CENTRAL PARFK, BY THEN RECENTLY FREEDMEN BUT STILL PRACTICALLY INDENTURED LABOR. SLAVES WERE ESSENTIAL TO THE EXISTENCE OF THE DUTCH AND THEN ENGLISH COLONY. SLAVES WERE HERE IN NUMBERS BEFORE THE ENGLISH AND EVERY OTHER ETHNIC AND NATIONAL IMMIGRANT POPULATIONS WERE.

[@Birdsandphotos]

I didn’t realize how small of a youtuber you were until I finished the video. I thought you’d have hundreds of thousands of subs. Great video! I’d love to see more about New Yorks human created geography and even the natural geography, especially with Long Island

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Thank you so much!

[@MrChristopherMolloy]

Only a Gen-Z KZbin influencer could say "Morris was a B-List Founding Father, but he wrote The Preamble to the U.S Constitution".

[@dawg2067]

Who is Morris? Never heard of him

[@mrencinas]

Definitely too old to be a Gen-Zer but that seems like a pretty fair description

[@ModernDayRenaissanceMan]

Exactly. I heard that & was like whoa get off your high horse kid. All founding fathers are equal. Just because YOU didn't learn about them in school doesn't change that fact. Really sad that this guy supposedly does history... & Fails at it. That's why this channel doesn't get recommended

[@eturtled]

@@ModernDayRenaissanceManchill out bro it’s not that deep

[@dayveo]

@@ModernDayRenaissanceMan d-list comment

[@mmjj7685]

If New York city stayed Neoclassical and Art Deco it would have been one of the most beautiful cities in the world and will definitely rivals ancient cities like Rome, Paris and London when it comes to beauty and architecture. Love the Flat iron building, Chrystler and Empire state building.

[@robertkeyes258]

ah yes but then Robert Moses came along

[@MarinCipollina]

@@robertkeyes258 Robert Moses was New York City's worst vandal and biggest cultural criminal

[@Jesse615]

I worked at 47th and Lex for years. Love the Chrysler Building; even more than the ESB (probably true for a lot of NYrs)! It was my Double Probation-Super Secret way to get to the GCT subway.

[@amysbees6686]

@@robertkeyes258 There’s a special level for him in Hades.

[@YouB3anz]

I own both the books used for this video and for the Boston video but I've never really read them so pretty cool to see these two vids with author interviews. Look forward to more.

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Oh no way? That’s so rad.

[@ristube3319]

I’m a lifelong NYC lover from CT. Part of my love is the ability to find yourself easily, vs. random street names like in Boston.

[@PlutoniumDG]

As a visitor I absolutely loved the grid with the easy logical numbered names. When my phone battery died I could walk back to my hostel without asking anyone for directions

[@ThekiBoran]

A whacky street layout gives a city character. Grids are sterile.

[@jcgonzalez-ramirez6670]

“Land had no purpose…” three Doritos later… “thousands of blacks and Irish people were displaced because of this” hmmmm purpose for whom?

[@GardenGuy1942]

I suspect he’s voting for Trump

[@desertlover12]

“Nobody wanted that land” “10 years before the Commissioner’s Plan, there was a plan to divide up the Common Lands into plots to sell.” He really just be glossing right by the real motivations for the drawing of boarders. It’s a very yt washed history

[@All-Gas-No-Breaks]

Casimir Goerck is finally getting the recognition he deserves. He thanks you from the beyond

[@SeverityOne]

Another example of a grid city is the capital of Malta: Valletta. It's tiny (fewer than 6000 people live there), but it's an extremely impressive piece of baroque architecture, replete with churches, palaces, and massive fortifications.

[@chuppl]

daniel dropping banger after banger

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Ily

[@Long.Island.Realtor]

Fun fact: In fiscal year 2023, NYC issued approximately 15.5 million parking and camera violations, resulting in about $1.08 billion in fines. This translates to roughly $2.96 million in parking ticket revenue per day.

[@Discotekh_Dynasty]

Crazy that the average person could have probably done a better job lmao

[@audithisworld24]

Keep up the good work. I am excited to see your channel grow to over 1M subs-just stick with it! 💪

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼 thank you!

[@amfnyc]

Even as a lifelong Nee Yorker (Manhattanite) whose life essentially revolves around the grid, I’ve learnt a thing or two from this video. Good work!

[@lilguillotine]

Do Chicago next! I’ve done a crap ton of research on it here and I can show you around.

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Send me an email!

[@lolgod1695]

Daniel isn't pregnant but he always delivers 😂

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Ahahahaha 🫄🫄

[@SagaciousSilence]

Founding of the most important city on earth: three dudes waited until the night before the essay was due and so just copied some other guy’s failed plan, and simply added a couple more lines. Done!

[@MrJimheeren]

Well to be fair. Nobody was calling New York the most important city in the world in the early 1800s. Boston and Philadelphia were both bigger cities not to mention the big cities in Europe, Paris, London, Madrid heck even Brussels were way larger then any city in the US

[@gizmothesquirrel9094]

Correction: New York was the greatest city. Its a trash heap today

[@Que-Lindo]

“Today, just taxis and assh…” would not have been wrong.

[@gemmasky]

The paths created by Native Americans were not mentioned as a reason for the placement of streets. Broadway?

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Valid point, I could have talked about that more. Unfortunately very few Native American trails turned into roads. Broadway is widely talked about as the former Wickquasgeck trail, but it in Fran Leadon’s book ‘Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen miles’ he makes an argument that it may not be very true to the trail and that maybe ‘Broadway has more become and Indian trail than and Indian trail becoming Broadway’ (paraphrasing). Not that the trail didn’t have an impact on the streets today, it’s just not a 1:1 with Broadway from my understanding and that felt like a large aside from the main point of the video. Would love to hear your thoughts tho!

[@newyorknewart]

@@DanielsimsSteiner THAT POINT IS IMPORTANT AS IT HIGHLIGHTS THE MAJOR SEASONL USE OF BROADWAY BY THE INGIGENOUS PEOPLE. THEY DID NOT JUST COEM HUNTING INFREQUENTLY AND GO OUT, THEY HAD LONG LIVED AND WORKED ON THIS ISLAND - FISHING, LOBSTER AND OYSTER FARMING AND FISHING IN ITS MANY STREEMS AND LAGOONS. MANHATTAN WAS NOT EMPTY WHEN TH CABOT SAILED BY, IT WAS FULL OF PEOPLE AS HE ATTESTED TO BEING GREETED BY MANY SMALL VESSELS. PEOPLES FROM WHAT IS NOW LONG ISLAND, NEW JERSEY AND UNSTATGE NEW YORK AL USED MANHATTAN IN AN ORGANIZED MANNER FOR ITS RICH NATURAL MARINE RESOURCES. THE DUTCH LIED ABOUT IT BEING ALMOST EMPTY TO JUSTIFY MILITARIZING IT AND ACTING LIKE "OUTSIDDE TRIBES" WERE A DANGER. THE DUTCH WERE THE DANGER.

[@totallyuneekname]

Daniel, those map animations are fantastic. I'd love a tutorial if you're ever up to it. Thanks for putting these videos together!

[@danielhorrocks9633]

Residents: So how exactly did you design this city? Planners: 🗿🗿🗿

[@loufancelli1330]

I really don't understand why anyone hates the grid. It makes it so simple, especially for such a heavily populated city. It's simplicity is it's magic. You know based on the number of the street and avenue where you are geographically. I can't even imagine what a disaster it would be without it.

[@sdiz3509]

Hey stop speaking common sense. I don’t want that in my backyard!!!

[@MissionHomeowner]

I respect the Gridfather! The Grid! logic, reason, easy to navigate.

[@balisaani]

Go to Paris, drive around for a couple of days. I'll wait.

[@MLWitteman]

Funny that you guys pronounce Houston, the way a Dutchman would pronounce it. Crazy to see how much Dutch influence you can still see in New York. Like to know where the grid plan probably came from? Just look back at the Netherlands. Grids are pretty common over here. The best example is the 17th century reclaimed land project, called the Beemster Polder. It’s a unesco world heritage site. Greetings from Haarlem, the Netherlands. (Yes, the original Haarlem)

[@jusjetz]

This grid could do better as superblocks like the city of Barcelona Spain

[@davidtrotman5990]

As a person who spent their wonder years (5-22) in NYC this stirred up the nostalgia. The benefit of the grid is that it is really easy to learn. The semi-irregular rhythm of the wider cross streets makes for neighborhood edges. I would advise reading Kevin Lynch's "The Image of the City" to understand how people understand their urban environment.

[@GlurglePop]

It’s the patented AIDSneedlemagnet design. Takes a while to get up to speed, but once it does… whew!

[@jordysyoutubechannel]

SLAYED i love learning

[@edwardkane7110]

Keep the videos up! Find it absolutely fascinating learning about the urban geography of these unique cities.

[@leafbelly]

Old man yells at cloud warning: Why are so many American urban KZbin videos so negative? I think the grid is beautiful and I couldn't imagine Manhattan -- or many other American cities -- any other way. And as for not keeping that little cabin on a small knob? That's what the country is for. Move to a rural area if you want natural beauty and old cabins. High-volume urban areas should be simple and intuitive to make it easy to get around. And how much more intuitive can you get than to tell someone to meet you at 5th Avenue and 126st Street and you immediately know where that is? Do we forget that this was long before the days of not only Google Maps, but folded maps, Atlases and the like. They had no foresight that, one day, computers would be telling all of us how to get from Point A to Point B. They did the absolute best with what they had at the time. Manhattan is tiny anyway, so it would have made zero sense to build some sort of road network with concentric circles like in Paris. It was just too small. I love the grid. I still think it's brilliant. And, yes, I'm a grumpy old man, but I still think this was a very nice video that was well-researched. Kudos and good luck on the channel.

[@tomreingold4024]

Hey, I really enjoyed this video. I grew up in Manhattan, left, and again live in Manhattan. I suspect the word convenience the commissioners used also applied to the land owners whom the plan affected. The designers probably thought about how to disrupt as few people (or dollars) as possible. So maybe there were more divisible plots on the east side than on the west side, explaining why avenues are close together there. I've been told that the close avenues ended up creating more wealth, and this makes sense to me, since what the City did -- divide into smallest practical size plots -- did create a ton of wealth. I don't think it's scandalous that some of these people built their work on previous people's works. It doesn't seem like stealing. I guess the earlier people couldn't get their work done for various reasons. Maybe they couldn't get through the bureaucracy. Or maybe the needed technology wasn't ready yet. Where can one get that map of Manhattan as it was found in 1609? It shows the small streams running across the island.

[@harveywachtel1091]

I don't understand the implication that "how-ston" is an aberrant pronunciation of "Houston". "Ou" is usually pronounced "ow" except in words of French origin, where it us pronounced "oo". I can't think of anywhere that it's pronounced "yew". The mystery is why Sam's name is what it is.

[@matthewk2388]

Great video. One minor correction: Avenues A, B, C, and D (Alphabet City) are in the East Village, not the Lower East Side.

[@azul8811]

When did the term “East Village” start to be used?

[@FatTracksMusic]

Damn I hope you find a way to put out more content these videos are incredible

[@jordysyoutubechannel]

vox’s vid on seneca village feels like the perfect follow up to this video 😮

[@silvin007]

how abt a video on Ho Chi Minh City District 1's Grid compare to the rest of the city, thats a history lesson. Now thats something I want to see, thank you.

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Hahaha 🫡🫡🫡 I can’t wait to do that video

[@silvin007]

@@DanielsimsSteiner love all your videos, but ofc none will match HCMC explainer when it comes out lol. Not sure if you need it but if you need any inputs from a native just lemme know. Thanks Daniel

[@on-the-pitch-p3w]

Now do Amsterdam. The unique canal belt. Thx. I mean Old Amsterdam and not New Amsterdam. 😂

[@lucachilla6456]

In Deutschland sagen wir: Das Gritt System wurde aus Mannheim gestohlen. In Englisch: In Germany we say: The Gridsystem was stolen from Mannheim :)

[@speedracer6294]

The grid was genius for allowing immigrants who could not speak English to navigate the city.

[@Aphrothena1221]

I wish the central park section would have included some information on Seneca village and the turmoil the park caused for them.

[@jamiecinder9412]

The numbered streets continue all the way to Westchester County, so I wonder when it was decided that The Bronx was to continue the numbers from where Manhattan left off. Also, whereas 5th Avenue is the E/W divider in Manhattan, Jerome Avenue serves that role for The Bronx.

[@barkboingfloom]

It's funny that the one street at an odd angle to the grid, Stuyvesant St. is named for a Dutchman. Because in cinema when you have a shot that is at an odd angle it's known as a "Dutch angle".

[@Montoya2005]

Dutch tilt*

[@chirstopherdavis9177]

This is the start of a great channel!

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Thank you!

[@allangeorgjensen6662]

Excellent video and very well presented. Maps and animations works so good. Thumbs up, well done 👍

[@DocSteiner]

So informative! Could listen to more and more!

[@mclevelandkent]

Im from uganda but new York is my heart i wish i get to live before i die❤

[@makasii]

a new Harris copycat... good work tho. hope you'll develop your own style.

[@OlgaYule]

Begin at once to live and count each separate day as a separate life.

[@Zwei-Rosen]

Fun fact: at the time of the commissioner's plan, the biggest landlord in Manhattan was John Jacob Astor, born in Walldorf near Heidelberg (thus Waldorf-Astoria). 25 km from Walldorf is Mannheim, founded in 1607 and originally built in a grit. Mannheim may be the blueprint for today's New York.

[@meireek9937]

The city of broken dreams

[@brodyspencer4761]

Would absolutely love a video like this about Toronto, Ontario, or Buffalo, New York!! Love this format!

[@henry00eilers]

Just got yourself a new subscriber! I would love to see a similar video for Athens, Greece. The city was supposed to house 100,000 residents, and yet there are more than 5 million of them today. It had 3 big rivers and now has none. They were turned into avenues... The newest neighborhoods are grids, the oldest have just a random formation of streets around wherever people build their houses, steep roads that only a goat could climb. There's a neighborhood built for the wealthy that is not crossable or connected to the rest of the city, similar to Back Bay in Boston but in the form of a circular labyrinth. There's a village with sheep and chickens on top of a hill, surrounded by the city, where you feel like you're in a rural area a hundred years ago and yet you're in the middle of the city. The old airport is turning into a park, residential area and business area. The center kind of preserves the way of ancient arteries of the city.

[@LOLWAAHH]

Omg I asked for a NYC map video after watching your Boston video, and here it is!!! Thank you 🎁

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Hope you enjoyed it!🎉 thank u for watching!

[@cameronjacobs7462]

another really awesome video man, you’re absolutely killing it

[@ChristopherVarjas]

Can you share links to the other maps used in the video, such as the ones at 2:59, and 9:44?

[@TheGuruofRock]

Fantastic video, super interesting. I'll get to forever claim that I was one of your first 100k subscribers ;-)

[@electropainted]

love this channel, love what you're putting out...exquisite production values for a small operation...high end infotainment!

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Much appreciated! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@meganleonard2330]

Can you imagine if New York was just like nah yea we’ll redo all the roads 😂 that would be a world shattering flex

[@awbenn]

The book and the video leave out the story of Henry Brevoort who owned the farm at the precise location where Broadway bends at tenth street. There is a famous poem called the Dutchman’s Quirk by Arthur Guilerman that attributes the bend of Broadway thereafter to his refusal to allow the city to cut down his favorite tree.

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Yes! Super interesting story!

[@wafflegear]

the gird was already there along with the star fort

[@ahnafj416]

Editing and everything just hits

[@kanoarayn]

Please do Seattle! I would love it so much. Loving your videos, really high quality content. I will keep coming back to it

[@BradThePitts]

Can you do a video about why nobody from New York has a New York accent? 🤔

[@edwardmiessner6502]

I think it's because of all the transplants from other areas --- New York has been attracting young people from around the country since the 1960s at least.

[@fbeauchamp9078]

I wish you talked more about the Common Lands and the people who lived there before being displaced for the construction of Central Park. I'm sure it'll make a great video.

[@marthastewartschowchow]

‘Other than a few settlements up north' is a misleading way to describe Harlem at the time. Why does the traditional narrative of New York’s growth always suggest it expanded solely from south to north? In fact, Harlem was a thriving village, established by the Dutch in 1660.

[@snububub]

Only 10k subs for this quality??

[@KellieT73]

I absolutely love this! Looking forward to watching your other videos, especially the one re. Boston.

[@Oceansta]

This is the kind of content I wanna see more of ❤ its great how you dont diretly assume that every viewer is from America.

[@rubybaby7320]

As I watched this it struck me at how modern you are in your thinking. I am only 64 but my family of origin is really early 20th century because of how old my father was when I was born and how old his mother was when he was born (He was 17th & she was 46). This huge shift in perception happened rather dramatically in the 80s 90s. I don't care for it because I think it lacks clarity. History isn't about power struggles. What I find missing is the context of the men and their times. Why these men didn't explain why is that few people did in reports. Introspection was more for a daily diary like Washington's generation did. The why wasn't as important as the what. I will also assert that America was finding that it had something to prove. We'd barely gotten past the War of 1812, and we weren't getting credit for that on the world stage. The American way of doing things was being fully expressed. Man had struggled against nature for life and progeny and man was finally winning. I'm looking forward to seeing Mangin's map. That has genealogical value since trying to figure out where our people actually lived is almost impossible with a modern NYC map. Although most of mine are in modern day Queens especially Mespath Kills which became Newtown which is near Jamaica. But the original contours of the land had nothing to do with the quality. What I find most interesting is Central Park: the ease with which cows could be pastured and crops raised was developed quickly, but the Central Park area provided cover for the native population to shelter or even stage an attack. Again, cultural context is missing. A native attack didn't mean Old World aggression response as much as it did a group of young men looking to make a name for themselves or wanting excitement like any group of young men across the ages. The politics between tribes often bled across cultures. But the Central Park area was a chore to maintain. New settlers coming in would rather go to New Jersey Pennsylvania or other parts of New York. The waters around Manhattan and Long Island were a buffet of free food. Gentle meadows and grasslands stretched for acres. Who wanted to move rocks and fill in swamps? In the end the men who planned this were relying on conventional wisdom of the time and the methods and precedents of land use up until now. I have read court records from the 1600s that detailed land disputes on Long Island and Oyster Bay. I'm sure that's where the why of your story lays, early Dutch and English records.

[@EPMTUNES]

sick video. Love that stuyvesant detail

[@bobs1474]

Amazing map video I can't wait to watch the rest of your videos!

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Thank you! I’m glad you like them!

[@thereal_bruh_hunter]

This vid is fire

[@Long.Island.Realtor]

Fun fact: In fiscal year 2023, NYC issued approximately 15.5 million parking and camera violations, resulting in about $1.08 billion in fines. This translates to roughly $2.96 million in parking ticket revenue per day.

[@Edumacator]

My man is everything i wanted to be as a KZbinr but he did it better 😅

[@DanielsimsSteiner]

Nah dude ur channel is awesome!

[@vz3_]

This is an excellent video, but I was pained when you just glossed over the tragedy of Seneca Village.

[@robertkeyes258]

Many years ago a friend of mine lived at a corner that is not supposed to exist in the grid plan, yet does - the intersection of two numbered streets. He lived at the intersection of 4th street and 12th street.

[@bholdr----0]

Y'know what I'd like, that the poster may be into- a compare/contrast of the grid/block structure and plans of Manhattan and Barcelona... Same paradigm, very different execution, informative differences in the results vis: structure, livability, transit, housing prices, and so on. Just a thought... 🤔

[@blobfish3576]

these videos are just so entertaining

[@marcobassini3576]

Perfectly grid shaped cities was an idea that came up to the ancient Romans and implemented systematically on a large scale in all the cities they founded across the empire. The beauty of this is that the grid roads survived more than 20 centuries of history and are still with us today. Look for example at the italian city of Piacenza on google maps (in satellite images mode), founded by the Romans in 218 BC (22 centuries ago!). The city center is still today a perfect square of equally spaced 90° roads (like a chessboard). The roads were laid down by the Romans and are still there after 2200 years of continuous use!!! Many italian cities have their center still laid down in this way, thanks to their foundation at the time of the Roman Empire. The 2 roads crossing at the center of the chessboard were aligned with the roman consular roads connecting the cities, and still today this alignment is there!! Amazing. Another good example to check is the city of Lucca, here you can also see an oval shaped square, and surrounding oval shaped road, that were built upon the ruins of the ancient Roman anfitheater, retaining its shape.

[@rebeccawinter472]

Fantastic work! Thanks! New subscriber. As a resident in another large grid city - Toronto - have often wondered where / why the street layout came from. Arterials seem to be largely just an organic extension of the county concession roads. But wow, has the city grown in 200 years. 200 years ago Queen Street (Lot Street) was the *northern* boundary of Toronto. 🤯

[@rollinwithunclepete824]

Thanks, Daniel! Very interesting... wonders how much the commissioners were paid for their hard work?

[@bettylovesnextlevel]

What if this is just a silly story to explain away why there was already a grid built out, with fancy buildings already aligning the streets? That would explain why these fellas never spoke of the grid they designed ever again, and also why they didn't have an explanation for why the streets were spaced unevenly. Maybe I just spend too much time on Jon Levi's channel, but I can't help but question the legitimacy of this story, despite my appreciation and enjoyment of the video itself and the well researched information presented within. I just don't outright believe much of what we are told to believe about history. Interesting stuff to ponder.

[@kalinystazvoruna8702]

Funny story which I don't know how true it is. Back in the 1960s, a neighbor was a history buff and knew a lot about NYC's history. He told me that when Minuet allegedly "bought" Manhattan island, he bought it from the Canarsie people who lived on Long Island, and *not* the Manhattan people who lived on Manhattan island and for whom the island is named. Basically, Minuet and the Dutch were sold land the Canarsies *did not own!*

[@csongorszendrey2180]

Captain Hindsight can't find out why anything happened... because it's not on the interwebs. Library? Gross. Journals from architects or planners or commissioners? Non-existent of it's not on the interwebs. C-.

[@DavidSanchez-hg8rw]

Such cool series! Glad I ran into you. definitely subscribed!

[@xipaki]

Amazing video, but they’re the fathers of the NY grid and not grid in general. That’s Hippodamus who designed the grid of Piraeus in 5 century BC, which grid is still being followed

[@unc1589]

Was Randal’s island named after Randall? You should do a video on the significance of the street names of NY. Like Bond st. And why did they call it “Maiden Lane?” Is that where the pretty chicks were at?

[@Uchetysx5]

Shallow work. You didn’t even explain why broadway exists as it is in the grid-it was an old Indian trail. What the word origin of Manhattan means. How the Cloisters show the hilly land it was. Thank you for your effort but not an A. Maybe a C- ☹️🇺🇸