Randel plan

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The Randel Plan is a development plan by geodesist John Randel Jr. for the New York borough of Manhattan . Simeon De Witt , one of the three commissioners at the time, the city administrators, commissioned Randel with the work from 1807. This resulted in the Commissioners' Plan , adopted in 1811, as an intermediate product . From 1807 onwards, a development plan was created for the future Manhattan, which was defined more precisely in 1811 in the Randel Plan, a 2.50 meter wide map and which established the checkerboard pattern north of 14th Street for Manhattan. 155 cross streets, known as streets , and twelve long streets , known as avenues , were to stretch across the island, forming 2000 blocks. In addition, the then still hilly and rugged Manhattan should be leveled on this basis .

Randel followed the well-known concept of the planned city , like the planners in Philadelphia , Savannah , Charleston , New Orleans and Washington, DC before

The Randel plan for the coming New York placed no emphasis on aesthetics, but rather focused purely on the easy sale of land and on convenient trade routes. This plan divided the area to the north that was still to be built on into rectangular blocks of equal size . The road system was simple, everything at right angles , strictly 'mathematical' and functional. Manhattan is still divided into horizontally running streets and vertically running avenues on north-facing maps . The main axis is Fifth Avenue , from which all streets on the left are 'West' and all streets on the right are 'East'. Only Broadway , which is already in its location and extends from south Manhattan to the north-western tip of the island , differs from this .

The Museum of the City of New York provides the Randel Map online in a scaled-down version. The historical course of 1811 and the reality today are shown in such a way that they can be easily compared by overlaying them. The original is 106 x 30 7/16 inches long / wide. The 92 individual plans were drawn in the original on a scale of 100: 1 feet.

See also

literature

  • Ric Burns, James Sanders: New York. The illustrated story from 1609 until today. Munich 2002. ISBN 3894056126 , pp. 53-54
  • Marguerite Holloway: The Measure of Manhattan: The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel, Jr., Cartographer, Surveyor, Inventor . 2013, 384 pages. ISBN 978-0-393-07125-2 .
  • Hilary Ballon: The greatest grid. The Masterplan 1811-2011. Columbia University Press and Museum of the City of New York, 2012. Supported by Furthermore: A Program of the JM Kaplan Fund. 224 pages. ISBN 978-0231159906

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Museum of the City of New York: The greatest Grid. Retrieved August 2, 2017.