Before
The Grid
The
1811 Plan
BUILDING
THE GRID
19TH-CENTURY
DEVELOPMENT
20th century–
Now
living on
the grid
other
Grids
The 1811 Plan
“A city is to be composed principally of the habitations of men and strait-sided and right-angled houses are the most cheap to build and the most convenient to live in.”
1811 Interactive Map (Detail)
The 1811 plan is a plainspoken but heroic statement. Undecorated, uncolored, unnaturalistic, it speaks to the mind and conveys the idea of comprehensive order.
The grid is simple but astonishing, structured but flexible, and embodies the forward thinking that prepared Manhattan for its unimaginably great future.
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