Some New York City Geography
New York while physically small is amazingly monstrous in its human geography. Let’s first take a look at Manhattan Island.
Manhattan Island is a long, slender landmass which is 13.4 miles long and 2.3 miles wide, at its widest. It comprises a total of 22.7 square miles, but is the home to more than 1.5 million residents (which does not include a daily influx of commuters, official visitors—like UN delegates, and tourists). For reference, Tustin is about 1/2 the area at 11.4 miles (i.e., 50% of the area), and has a population of 70,000 (4% of Manhattan’s); Irvine is about double the area (i.e., 200% larger) at 46.5 miles with a population of 202,000 (13% of Manhattan’s). It is more than 8 times more dense than Los Angeles! So, obviously, New York City is an incredibly dense living condition.
By the early 19th century, it was becoming evident that traffic, both human and cart, would be endlessly snarled without some order to the street system—the original Dutch colonists had created organic streets which followed the contours of the topography or old Indian paths (such as Broadway). In 1811 the Commissioners’ Plan called for a strict grid system to be adopted north of Houston St. (pronounced HOUSE-ton). In this plan there would be twelve avenues that would run north and south, with Fifth Avenue being the demarcation line for East and West. Streets would cross the avenues and be numbered up to the 180s in the extreme north end of the island. Downtown, or lower Manhattan, is the city south of 14th street. Uptown is north of 59th street. Midtown is between the two but generally the area between 31st and 59th is considered specifically midtown when people mention it, which is directly south of Central Park.
Different neighborhoods exist within each of these regions, sometimes even smaller districts within these neighborhoods. New York is constantly in flux as its dynamic commercial engine keeps people moving in and out, up and down.
When Nick says that he sees the taxis lined up in the Forties, he’s talking about the streets 40th-49th; and from the map you can tell that this is driven by the theater district entertainment (theater row is on 42nd street between 11th and 9th Avenues).
Four other boroughs make up New York City proper: Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. Residents of each would take issue with our focus on Manhattan, but it has been Manhattan that has fired the imagination and produced some of the most iconic images of New York City.
Below is a photo of Downtown in 1928. At the immediate bottom is an area called Battery Park, where an old defensive fort was located during the colonial period. Even by this time lower Manhattan was dominated by skyscrapers; each has its own mythology and story of its own. From here we can make out Manhattan Municipal Building, the Woolworth building (world’s tallest building 1913-1930), and the Singer Building (world’s tallest,1908-1909). My favorite, the Chrysler Building would take over the title as tallest in the world when it was finished in 1930.
Below is a night photo of Times Square (in Midtown, near the Theater District) in 1921:
Brooklyn, on the other hand, was not conceived in the same magnificence, but it still exhibited densities similar to Manhattan:
Powered by ScribeFire.
Filed under: The Great Gatsby and
Leave a Reply