Learning From Manhattan: the consistency of a grid

Abstract

The outstanding role of Manhattan as an urban laboratory is physically
based in a grid that was drawn at the beginning of xixth century, consolidated during
the xxth century process of urbanisation and which, despite the successive political
and economic crisis along more than 200 years, remains today valid. The paper reviews
its creation, analyses the most relevant urban renewal operations, mostly motivated
by big real estate decisions or by traffic and transport problems, more than by 

public space considerations, and brings reflexive issues for the most recent proposals.
Interventions like Lower Manhattan, Union Square, Midtown, 42th street or at the
current PlaNYC-2007, show the deal and commitment between the different urban
agents and the administration, the fragmentation of the territory depending on the
different goals, the population diversity and its urban options, the lack of care on
heritage protection strategies, the overlay of order and freedom, of fantasy and realism,
and the absence of any author prominence. However, the grid of streets and
avenues has remained unchanged in all of these interventions, at the contrary of what
happened with buildings, activities and forms of life under its footprint.