Manhattan is famous for its grid — so famous that people take pictures of the way the sun shines through it. But the origin of that grid wasn’t always certain, and not everybody is a fan. The above video shows why.
Where Manhattan’s grid came from
It’s iconic. But you might not realize why it’s there.
Phil Edwards is a senior producer for the Vox video team.
New York City was particularly chaotic and unplanned in its early days, after years of catering to developers and, at the same time, ignoring their requests for a more logical city plan. That made the introduction of a new plan in the 1800s a more urgent matter — and a reasonable time to introduce a plan that lacked many of the artistic flourishes of contemporary city plans.
New York was all about building, and building fast — and it’s still that way today. Watch the video above to see why.
You can find this video and all of Vox’s Almanac series on YouTube. And if you’re interested in supporting our video journalism, you can become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube.
Further reading
“The Greatest Grid” takes other academic work about the grid and compiles it into a nice website.
“The grid as city plan: New York city and laissez‐faire planning in the nineteenth century” by Peter Marcuse is a great history of the grid.
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