Selects: The Manhattan Grid

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It is on our COVID timeline, June 18th, 2020. And I am here to introduce the episode on the Manhattan Grid. I loved love this episode. I think is most people know by now.

I, in particular, am pretty obsessed with not just New York. Like I love New York as a town, but the inner workings of New York and the garbage collection and the male delivery and building that city up from the ground up,

which is what this episode relates to is how they laid out that Manhattan Grid. And here's one thing I remember from it, and here's a fun tip, if you're traveling to New York. They use spikes in the ground to think iron spikes

to map out that grid, and you'll learn that in this episode to follow. So they knew where the streets and the street corners would meet up in that big wrecked angle.

And to this day, you can still find some of those. The only place I know about them, I'm not sure if they're on the streets anymore at all. It seems highly unlikely, but I know you can find them

for a fact in central park here and there in the rocks. There's big giant boulders there because I learned about these and when I was in New York, sometime between June 18th, 2020, when we released this, and now, I can't remember if

I feel like it's a few years ago. I saw one of those spikes.

“And I think I talked about that on a later episode,”

but it thrilled me to know end. And I geeked out and told everybody I was with what that was and what it represented. And it was a real thrill for me. No lie, just to spike in the rock.

I thought it was super cool. So check this episode out on the Manhattan Grid. - Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of "I Heart Radio." - Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And this is Stuff You Should Know. Another and our endless annals of New York City edition. - That's right. This is a pretty interesting episode, I think,

and my favorite part about it. This was Dave Ruiz, one of our writers helped put this together and Dave is clearly annoyed about this whole thing. And I think it's hysterical how many times he gets annoyed by the laziness of the commission.

- I have to say I agree with Dave too. I was annoyed by it as well, I think. - Yeah.

- It's always annoying when you see somebody

like have a great opportunity and just pee it away. You know what I mean? - Yeah, and we should also point out, Dave got a lot of his information from a really wonderful book called "City on a Grid" colon.

How New York became New York by Gerald Kipple. Not Gerald McRaney, different Gerald. - Right, or is it Kipple? I think it's Kipple if it's K-O-E.

“- That's what I was going with, it was Kipple.”

- Yeah, I'm gonna get this book though. This is right at Manley, 'cause I'm obsessed

of New York City as we know it today.

“- Yeah, where'd you get the idea for this episode?”

- Just my constant desire to learn about Manahata and how that became eventually Man-Hatton that we know and love. - Okay. - I'm just fascinated by it, I love everything about it.

- This is definitely a big chapter, and because what we're talking about is the plan called the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 that basically laid out Man-Hatton as we know and understand and love it today.

Everything north of Houston Street, I should say. - Yeah, and here's sort of a quick primer is Man-Hatton above Houston is almost a perfect grid. Broadway kind of screws everything up. - Boo.

- But, you know, great street, but it's just Broadway's like, I'm not following any rules. So I'm gonna confuse people. But aside from that, it's pretty much a grid

of 11 numbered avenues that run north to south generally speaking, then you've got Lexington Park and Madison avenues. And then 200, and this was at the time,

“numbered streets running roughly east to west.”

And if you wanna get a little more granular than that, the southernmost street in the East Village is east first as you would imagine. The northernmost is 220th street as we live in breed today and inward.

- Well, that's on the island, technically in Manhattan, if you're talking about the burrow, it goes up to 227th, I believe. - Right, and if you wanna go through the Bronx, you go all the way up to 263.

- Man, that's crazy. - You've got in so many streets. - That's so many streets. You've got in two hundred and six and three streets. - You've got an east and west signifier, which says,

and this is sort of a dummy's guy to getting around New York for the first time, too. If you, you know, broke your smartphone and you also don't wanna walk around just staring at your smartphone the whole time.

- No, you're gonna miss a lot. - Yeah, so try and get a little into it a feel 'cause it's really easy to get around if you know this stuff.

“- The east and west will signify whether you're an east or west of Fifth Avenue.”

And then, here's a little trick, too. Odd number street, streets run west, even number streets run east. So if you come out of a subway and you know which way north south, east and west are,

then you will never do the thing that I always do

and walk in the wrong direction, trying to go up or down. - Yeah, because that's the thing. Like if you know what direction you're facing and you know where you're trying to go

and where you are right now, you can basically make your way anywhere in Manhattan above House and Street. - Yeah, and if you're like me and you have no idea ever what's north southeast and west

in New York. - I don't know either. - I had an easy time in LA 'cause LA has the sun. - Well, they have that, but they also have geographical landmarks that make it super easy to tell which way north and like the Hollywood sign

and the hills and stuff like that. - Is that real? Is the Hollywood sign real? What do you mean? (laughing) - Okay.

So that makes a lot easier in New York when I come out there all those big tall buildings.

I never know, I can never come out and say like,

well that's north, but if you know that stuff and you know that the even numbered streets run east, the odd ones run west, then you can, you won't walk in the wrong direction for a block and then get there like I do and go,

oh, we should have gone the other way. - Yeah, because depending on what direction you're walking, if you're walking north or south, going the wrong direction to a block isn't that bad, but if you're going east or west, it's real bad.

- Well, because it's short. - Very long blocks going east or west and that's all part of that commissioner's plan that was laid out in 1811. And on the one hand, you know,

we've kind of hit upon the pros and the cons of it that it's easy to get around, which is really saying something because New York is absolutely huge, but you could make it from one end to the other

without a map, just knowing that it's on a grid and how the grid's laid out, even roughly.

But the problem is it's on a grid

and a grid is one of the least organic shapes around and because this grid stretches over almost all of Manhattan, most of Manhattan for sure. It's viewed by a lot of people as kind of soulless in Canyon Ask because you're just totally surrounded

almost constantly by big and posing buildings, all of these right angles, which it feels like a very built environment. And until Central Park came along, which we did a episode on in what the 1850s or 60s,

it's like that was it, that was New York. There was nothing but that built environment.

- Oh, okay, let's have a look.

- Canyon Hattens about 13 and a half miles long, and then so this grid makes sense, but then once you get north of 59th street, you start to get like Atlanta does and a road will just change names.

Out of nowhere, Atlanta's very famous for that. People get very confused here. - It is very confusing also because the road will change names, but one of the names, peach tree will still be there,

but it's a totally different street. - Right. - It does not help things. - That's right. So north of 59th avenues on the west side, change names,

but avenues on the east side do not. So 8th becomes Central Park West, 9th becomes Columbus Avenue. 10th becomes Amsterdam Avenue and 11th becomes west and Avenue.

- What about Avenue of the Americas? - Well, that's six, right, or is that seven? - Oh, man, I thought, I think it's six,

“I think it's six, but that's really not a name change.”

That's just, that's something that tourist call it. - Right, I remember you making fun of me when I called it that. - Did I really, yeah, that sounds a bit right. - That sounds a bit right. - That sounds a bit right.

- And then to get people really confused between 3rd and 5th Avenue, there are three avenues instead of what you would think would be one because Lexington Park and Madison fall between those. - Yep.

- And then south of 23rd, you've got your lettered avenues. - Okay. - ABC and D, which is alphabet city. - So you wouldn't need to ever pull out a map. You just have to stand in the middle of New York

and listen to the first like 10 minutes of this episode

and you'll find your way no problem. - All right, should we get into this? You said people don't like the grid. - There are a lot of people. I mean, what did Walt Whitman call it?

- Ikki, I think. - Now, I think he said he called it one perpetual dead flat. - Yeah, and streets cutting each other at right angles are certainly the last things in the world consistent with beauty of situation.

- How about this one from Edith Wharton? Rectangular New York, this cramped horizontal grid iron of a town without towers, porticoes, fountains, or perspectives, hide bound in its deadly uniformity of mean ugliness.

- Yeah, I like hide bound. - That's great. - That's great word. And mean ugliness, definitely captures like a certain sense

“of New York depending on your mood or mindset, you know?”

- Yeah. - There's one guy named Peter Markius, who's an architecture critic. He said that the grid layout of Manhattan was one of the worst city plans of any major city

in the developed countries of the world. - Right, but some people love it. Some people said it was pragmatic. Some people said it really accommodated for the one thing it needed to accommodate for,

which was massive growth. - Right. - Let me see here, an architect named Raphael Vinnelli, who's, I think, a modern architect, not modern. I just mean current architect.

- Right. - But he may do modern work in his. - He said the best manifestation of American pragmatism, pragmatism, in the creation of urban form.

And then in 1978, a Dutch architect, named Arama Coolhass, said that the grid was the most courageous act of prediction in Western civilization. Clearly talking about the growth.

- Yes, but a courageous act, that's like a architect talk right there, right there. So, but the most part from what I understand and definitely Dave says the same thing. Most New Yorkers, especially born and raised New Yorkers,

“are not happy that that's how their city is laid out.”

There's a lot of room for improvement. - Yeah, you're experienced too. - Sure, I mean, Central Park is great, but as we'll find out, they did not, they didn't really plan for green spaces

and New Yorkers done their best to kind of carve them out since then, but let's get into this commission.

- Well, let's talk about grids first, do you want to?

- Yeah, all right. Do you want to take a break and then talk about the grid's tree? - Yes. (upbeat music)

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or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - So New York didn't invent the grid as much as they liked to boast that they did.

They did not, in fact, a grid layout of a city goes back to that Indus Valley Civilization that for some reason keeps popping up in the last year or so. I guess they're gonna make a comeback or something like that,

but they've just been coming out all over the place. But one of the, what was it, Chuck was it? Did they invent the zipper? I don't think it was a zipper. What was it? - Indigo.

- There's been, there's been a number of them, but anyway, at least 5,000 years ago, the Indus Valley Civilization was using the grid layout to create Mohanjo Daro, which was a 758 or city on a grid, and then shortly after that,

the Greeks said, I really like this. In fact, there's a Greek thinker and mathematician named Hippodamus, who's known as the father of city planning, and he was bully for grids too.

- Yeah, if you have a grid that's still, these people still call that the Hippodamus plan, which is kind of great all these years later, to still get recognized for your grid work. - Yeah, if you're ever talking to somebody

and they refer to a grid as a Hippodamus plan, that person knows what they're talking about. - Or listens to this show.

- It's one in the same basically.

- And you're gonna say that. Let me see the conquistadors of Spain. They kind of had a habit of coming in, conquering, and then having their template in place to create these grids is what they call the law of the Indies,

and they would sort of just come in, set up shop. You got a town with a big central plaza, and then a grid surrounding that central plaza. - Right, and they use that for everything from Lima to Los Angeles.

And this took me back in my mind to, what was the name of that colonial town in Guatemala

- Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. It was wonderful. - Driving crazy, it really was wonderful. One of the most beautiful towns I've ever been in, but it had a central plaza with the fountain.

It was a much smaller town,

“but now that I think about it, it was laid out on a grid, too.”

And it was part of that law of the Indies that you were mentioning, that it was just like, this is how you build the town. And apparently the reason that they used that law, like, in town after town after town,

that they just basically took over,

and said this is ours now, it's Spain's, is applying a grid was kind of a metaphor for applying order and civilization to a formerly disordered and wild indigenous town. Which makes sense from a colonizer's perspective,

but I'm sure it sucked from the indigenous persons perspective. Like everything else. - Yeah, but it's with this stupid right angle stuff. - So New York City comes along. Philadelphia had been laid out in a grid

by William Penn very deliberately, though. And that grid was kind of roomy and spacious, because William Penn did not like the congestion of London. - No. - But again, Philly, very much purposeful.

- Same with D.C. too. - Yeah, boy D.C. has kind of a crazy grid. - Yeah, but once you understand it, it makes total sense numbers and letters and directions, yeah.

- But it takes a lot more. - It takes more getting used to the New York, too, from my experience in what I understand. - Yeah, for sure. So the commissioner's plan of 1811

is really sort of the demarcation point

between what was first New York, New Amsterdam,

and then what we now know as Manhattan, because anyone who's ever seen, almost had games of New York, games of New York knows that those were crazy days down there in Lower Manhattan, and things just sort of sprouted up organically

from the river upward, as far as the layout and the design. And you know, you can still feel that when you go down to Lower Manhattan, which is why I love the villages now.

“I think it's just, I mean, I like this simplicity of the grid,”

but I think what I love about Lower Manhattan is how organic it feels. - It's a jumble, and I mean, it's a jumble for a reason, because those streets largely follow these original organic paths that the Dutch settlers

and earliest English settlers basically said, "Oh, we need to get from the waterfront up to the common land." - Yeah. - Whatever. - So here's a good path.

And this path happens to meander around a salt marsh, and we avoid having to go up a hill by going around this way. So it's kind of like meandering, and it's definitely locked in time

from those streets down there in Lower Manhattan. I like it too, but it is very easy to be like, "Are you sure we're going the right direction still? It's very easy to get lost in those, 'cause it isn't at all a grid."

- Yeah, I've spent enough time in Lower Manhattan now to where I can land market. Like, it's just familiar enough to me to where I kind of know like this block in that block. So I know where I'm going.

“- And you mentioned something important.”

I don't think we've even kind of said that New York was not all this just big one, big flat slab 13 miles long that we love today, because you can walk forever without ever getting out of breath, 'cause it's not Seattle.

- Right. - New York was swamp land and it had hills and marshes and creeks and rocks, and it was kind of wild east coast territory. - Yeah, and the reason that those marshes

and the ponds and hills and stuff aren't there anymore is because of this 18 to 11 commissioner's plane, it basically said, "Tare it all down, fill it all in, build this over it, and they did." That's the most astounding thing is they did.

That they, you know, as we'll see, they passed a law that basically said, we're going to, a point of commission of three people, they're going to come up with a plane. - Three people.

- And whatever they come up with is law. - Yeah. - That can't be challenged in court. It were not going to back it up and change it in any way and they really didn't. As bad as the plan was and almost every way,

they really stuck to it. But the thing that struck me, I had no idea about this, was that the 18 to 11 commissioners' plane was just a rip off of another earlier surveying map that basically provided the basis of the commissioners' plan.

Not even the basis of it, they were like, "Oh, we'll take this as a starting point." They just said, "We'll take this, print it, "and put our names on it." And that's ultimately what happened.

- Yeah, so pre-revolutionary war,

most of Manhattan was in that lower third of the island.

because of the Revolutionary War. And so the city said in the 1780s,

"All right, here's what we got to do.

"We own tons of land, publicly owned land, "and all this marshy, kind of ready, rocky, pondy area." It's not developed. Let's sell this stuff off and make some dough. It's called the common lands.

And we need somebody to get in there and just sort of survey this and plot it out a lot. So we know exactly how to best sell this. - Yeah, so they hired a guy named Kazimir Theodore Gork. - That's what I'm going, 'cause Gork?

- Sure. It's not a cucumber, it's a gorkin'. - Do you remember Mr. Cabbagehead from Kids in the Shore? - Well, this had nothing to do with that, right? - All right.

So this surveyer actually went through the common lands. Like basically what we understand is all of Manhattan between Haustin and North Harlem,

he just went across and broke it into 500 acre parcels.

He had a 66-foot chain on his surveying poles. And so he said, well, I'll just use that as the basic measurement for the widest street, 66 feet is what it's going to be.

“- I think he said 500 acre parcels, weren't they five acre?”

- Oh, yes, I'm sorry, big deal. It's a little bit of a difference. They were five acre parcels, so that's even more work. That's a hundred times more work than what I described. - That's right, so he laid him out as a grid

because he wasn't like, this guy wasn't out to say, here's how Manhattan should be built. - Right, right, this is the best way to promote the future of growth in Manhattan. - No, that was not his charge.

His charge was like, hey, let's just divide this stuff up and sell it. He had some interesting constraints. They had to be five acres.

They had to have a central road that all of these

could sort of access like fairly easily. - Right. - And then had a survey chain. It's crazy to think about this was one of the things that informed what is modern New York.

His survey chain was 66 feet, so he said, all right, that's how wide the road is. - Yeah, exactly.

“So I think that was like the widest road,”

the central access road, he called that one middle. And now I believe that's fifth avenue is middle. What was originally middle road back in 1796? - Yeah, that's adorable. - So he carved this up, this place up into these plots

that are 200 feet on the eastern west boundaries of it so going up and down, running north south, but if you're on the plot, it would be on the east side of the plot and the west side of the plot. If that was not confusing before, it is now.

- Yeah. - And then a cross or the width was 920 feet. And that was the, those were the plots, he said, here you go. This is a, there's a bunch of them up there, but I've carved up all of these common lands

and you can start selling them if you want. - Yeah, did you mention the names of the other two roads? - Oh yeah, he said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put two more in of these 66 feet wide roads and he had some very clever names for them.

- Yeah, one was a middle, remember. The one to the east, he named east and the one to the west, he named west. - Yeah, which makes sense if you're looking at it from, if you're on the middle road,

to the east is the east road to the west of the west road, but they run north south. - Right. - Man, I hate directions. And like you said, that it was fifth in the center,

so that's now fourth, fifth and sixth have. - Right, or fourth avenue, fifth avenue, and the avenue that you mentioned. (laughing) You know, you really know it's supposed to say that,

what a jerk, you keep leaving, said that. - You didn't say it like that. - And it made sure that you waited until a crowded gathered and really laid into me.

“- I think I remember it, was that our first trip to New York?”

- Probably. - Yeah, probably. - That's funny. Back a couple of times since then, has a team, huh? - Yeah, I know.

I've got some really great memories of New York. - I miss it. - Yeah, it's been a while. - 2021, we will see you again. - Yes, we will, New York, don't you worry.

- At least I hope so, if there are no guarantees, right? - No, we will see New York again. - All right. So, do we take another break? I feel like you're still a lot.

- There's still a lot, we should keep going for now, I think. - All right, so in 1807, this is when the New York state legislature said, you know what, we need to, like, we're growing here, it's clear that this Southern tip of Manhattan

is just the beginning. So they passed a bill that they described as an act of relative, an act relative to improvements, touching the laying out of the streets and roads in the city of New York and for other purposes.

- All right, which made sense, but like I said, that this law, they decided to just invest absolute authority into these three commissioners

Whatever that seems to them, most conducive to public good,

“we're just gonna take on its face that it is,”

most conducive to public good and just go with it. - That's crazy that it was just three people and that it wasn't like 10 teams of three people submitting the best designs that then would be gone over and voted on like, yeah, clearly we took this,

no one took it seriously, weirdly enough. - Very odd, so who were these guys? - So there were three commissioners at point,

and one was Governor Morris, his first name was Governor.

He was one of the founding fathers. He wrote a lot of the constitution, including the preamble, he had a peg leg, he lost his leg in a carriage accident, although there's rumors that it was something else,

but he was known as a, they've put an energetic fallander. But he was apparently a very likable Benjamin Franklin asked kind of dude, who seemed to be fairly smart, but had really no understanding of surveying as far as I can tell.

- No, then his nephew in law, John Rutherford, he was a landowner in New Jersey.

“In fact, I think the largest landowner in New Jersey at the time,”

and by all the accounts it looks like this was pure nepotism, he was late for meetings, he was not especially interested, even to the annoyance of Governor Morris. All the reasons to not exercise nepotism,

this guy brought to the table is one third of this commission

who's figuring out how to lay out the plan for New York City. - That's right, and then the third guy, Simon LeBon, no, no, no, Simeon DeWitt, excuse me. And this guy actually knew what he was doing. He was a really very respected, accomplished surveyor,

worked with George Washington. I think eventually became the, which I didn't even know was the thing, was the official surveyor for the Continental Army, and then the surveyor General of New York State.

- Right, so he knew what he was doing, which makes his role all the more shameful that he didn't say like, oh well, we really had a, we gotta get cracking, it's been three years, and we've got four years to do that.

- Maybe he did, though, he knows. He might have been completely run over by these other two jumps. - Oh, and he just got shouted down, I guess. - I don't know.

- Well, at the very least, Governor Morris was also one of the founding members of the commission that created the Eerie Canal, which was for a very long time considered, one of the greatest public works projects

in the history of America, certainly in the history of New York State, and that kind of energy and imagination and drive just did not make it to this 1811 commission for the planning of New York. - I wonder if he, I mean, the sounds cynical,

but I wonder if he literally was like, man, that Eerie Canal project really was a big bummer and how hard we had to work in, let's just kind of, hey, look at these maps at this guy drew to sell off New York.

Let's just use those. - Yeah, so that's kind of what they did, like they had four years, or they took four years, I'm not sure how long they had, but they took four years from 1807 to 1811

to turn in their report, four years of meetings sporadically true, but they still met over this four-year period. They came up with an 11-page report to lay out these 13 miles in length,

not even square miles, of Manhattan, these common lands, all the way from house and street up to North Harlem, they came up with 11 pages to explain their map, and their map really made sense as a grid, but again, they stole the grid from Kazmir Gork,

“I can't remember what I called them before.”

- Gork. - I'm going with Gork now, okay, sure. But they didn't give them any credit for it whatsoever. - No, I mean, I don't want to go so far as to call it a tracing project,

but, you know, they borrowed pretty heavily, like the streets and the avenues were basically the exact same, when, you know, earlier you mentioned the blocks were 200 by 920 feet in Gork, from Gork, right?

- Yeah, just had the exact same way out, and that was no accident. - No, and they were in virtually the same spot. They did do some stuff, you know, they didn't just take his map like you're saying

and trace it and call it their own. They made some changes to it. They created, instead of the three middle east and west, they created 12 avenues running north south, and not true north south, but just, you know,

for our purposes north and south, and then they created 155 numbered streets. - Yeah, but they added this stuff, but it sort of just copy paste. - Kind of.

- Kind of, but the big thing is, so adding the 12 numbered avenues was a definite change to Gork's.

Gork's, never gonna say the same thing twice.

- But was it?

- I know, but he just had the three,

and they were like, well, we need more, so let's just do what he did all over the place.

“- Sure, sure, okay, all right, you know what I'm saying?”

- That's fair, yeah, these guys are definitely not the hill I'm willing to die on, so say what you will about. I think they're lazy Shmoves too, all right. And then they took these cross streets that are formed by the surveying of these blocks

and turned them into numbered streets. So avenues running north south, they were the big ones, 155 numbered streets running east to west. They widened the avenues, so they're gonna be 100 feet wide,

I guess they had a longer survey in the bigger chain, right? And then they widened some of the cross streets to, I guess, ease congestion. I think they widened 15 of 'em total. - Yeah, I think the other streets were 60 feet

and then 15 of them went to 100 at 14th, 23rd, 34th,

40 second, 57, 72, 79, 86, 96.

106, 116, 115, 115, 115, and 155. - Right. - But why? - Why those particular ones?

“- So it doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason,”

because if you notice, they didn't really hit their stride into keeping them separated by 10 cross streets until 86th street, yeah. So there's not really much rhyme or reason there. - When they went to that for three of 'em.

- Right, and then the streets that they did choose to widen, didn't necessarily make much sense one way or the other. Like for example, 71st street was already fairly wide. It was definitely wider than 72nd street, but they decided to make 72nd street

the widened cross street rather than 71st. And apparently no one knows why.

The closest thing I could find is there's some record

in 1857 of somebody having to remove a big rock from 72nd street to widen it. That doesn't even explain to you make sense, because there was a bunch of houses that had to be torn down to make 72nd street widened

rather than 71st, which was already wide. - And had almost no houses. - Exactly. So these guys were just, when you start to compile all the evidence well, we'll kind of pay more out.

It really seems like these guys didn't even go to the common lands that maybe they were just working from Gurks map, or if they did go to the common lands, they took zero notes or paid zero attention, and that all of this came from a place of laziness

and ignorance, like not knowing that 72nd was wider than 71st or vice versa, would explain that decision more than anything else. - Yeah, the other example is if you've ever been on the west side and you feel like man these avenues are big,

it's because they are. The avenues on the east side are spaced at 650 and 610 feet apart, or 610 feet apart, and on the west they are all 800 feet apart for no reason. - No reason at all.

- Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Again, it just, it seems like they just phoned the sin. And what's even more astounding is that New York's founding father said, okay, we're gonna do exactly what you say without questioning it.

- Yeah, and actually we kind of do have the reason

“if you read closely and we'll tell you the secret reason”

right after this. (singing in foreign language) - He portlandia fans? - Carrie Brown seen in front of our mission here. - You know us or rather, you know them.

Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. - We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, A.O. re-watch, our brand new podcast.

Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process.

- How did any of this get made? Why do do you think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. - And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life.

guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself, Kyle McGlockland, legendary musician, Amy Mann, and many more. - Kyle is going right here.

You fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it. - I thought he was gonna write, I thought you were all gonna write a song. - I remember you thinking that.

Listen to Podlandia. - A.O. re-watch on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. - And Sean Clements.

- We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes

and understand what's going on. - We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. - But definition of what is a movie is kind of changed anywhere, too, right?

- What do you think it is now? - It's images and words being spoken captured by some sort of technology. - Danny McBride who I'm hoping. - Oh, that's fantastic.

Can you make it on, you make your own? That's great. - I call 'em 'taro read. (laughing) It's a good name.

- They're all named after Task Members of American Pie. - Yeah, I call it, I don't.

I never looked up if she was in this,

but I call 'em 'leachy' so be asking. - Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I just didn't like that. - We'll get out of here, haven't looked it up, she was prompted for a little time.

- Yeah. - Then Mary Steenberg. - Why are you guys tired? - I'm tired. - I'm tired.

- Why are you so down to me? That you think I don't understand your little play play game. - I just really, I'm trying to set you up for success here.

- Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - This is Chelsea Hamlet from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse.

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(upbeat music) - Is that for a cliffhanger? - It was great. I'm still a little tense waiting for you to pay it off. - All right, here's the real reason, everyone,

and it all lies in this quote that is pulled from their commission report. If it should be asked why was the present plan adopted

in preference to any other, the answer is,

because after taking all circumstances in the consideration, it appeared to be the best or in other more proper terms, attended with the least inconvenience.

“- And I think that's the magic phrase right there.”

Last phrase, attended with the least inconvenience, and Dave rightfully says what is obvious, which is inconvenient for the three commissioners. - Yeah, because their plan was extraordinarily inconvenient for basically everyone involved.

Like, from the people who were in charge of making this building this grid, or this plan, to the people who were already living in places that were torn down 40%, yeah, 40% of places were torn down to adhere to this plan, this 18-11 commission plan.

- Yeah. - That's crazy. And again, when you start to add all the stuff up, it does seem like the least inconvenient for the three commissioners.

And the fact that, if that is true, and they just included that as kind of like a cheeky little joke, you know, this guys are, they're not necessarily burning in hell, but they're probably in purgatory somewhere. - I also have a lot of respect for that kind of laziness at times,

so.

“- The kind that makes fun of itself in public documents?”

- Well, just, just, is that upfront about the fact, like, you know what, I didn't really want to work too hard on this, so here it is. - Right. - So, yeah, it was very inconvenient for everyone,

but they did this because of the growth population they expected. So it sort of made sense, but they didn't even got that wrong. They were wrong by about half of what they thought the growth rate was gonna be. - Yeah, that's the thing is they were saying, like, okay,

this is, this affords enough population growth to afford a population greater than any other this side of China is how they put it. So they clearly did have at least growth on their mind and that if you build on a grid affords for the most growth,

it's the easiest to build on right-angled structures or the easiest to build and settle in live in. But the thing is, as part of that law, the 1807 law, that establish the commission,

Although it said in size and form and all that, in number, that the commissioners see fit. Unfortunately, the commissioners didn't see fit to make almost any kind of public gathering places, especially green spaces for mental health, I guess,

is what you would call it? - Yeah, and the reasoning is kind of BS, actually. I'm not sure which one it was. I guess it was Morris that I'm not gonna read the whole quote,

but he basically said, hey, listen,

we don't have the sin, river, or the Tim's winding through the middle of town. But what we do have are these two wonderful rivers that just kind of hug Manhattan, and that's enough because everyone's just gonna go hang out

at the river all the time, 'cause it's beautiful and gorgeous, and you can swim in it, and the East River and the Hudson River will forever be our green space, basically. - Yeah, basically, that was the city had enough.

It didn't need green spaces because of the East and the Hudson rivers. And about 40 years, people are like, no, we need to build central park. - Yeah, which was a savior, because I think it says here,

on their original plan, only five percent of the grid

was public green space, and 240 of those 400 acres

was a parade ground. - Yes, which I didn't know exactly where that was to you. - No, I'm not sure, I don't know. I mean, there's Washington Square Park. There's some cool kind of central promenades

and things like that, and then these, New York's famous for these tiny little slivers of a park, kind of all over the place, but they're small. - They are very small, especially compared to the surrounding areas for sure in the buildings.

“- That's why the High Line was such a big deal.”

- Yeah, it was a big deal, and I remember not quite grasping why, no, I definitely do, because there's just people need that. People need green space, they need nature, they need to be like outside of a built environment,

even if it's a built natural environment, you know what I mean?

- Yeah, and central park is amazing, and we love it,

but that's a long way, if you're in Southern Manhattan, to get up there. - Right, right, but basically these guys said, you don't need it. Go hang out at the Hudson or the East River.

- So wonderful, and lovely. So there were a lot of people, like we said, that we're really unhappy with this. This was a huge exercise of eminent domain. There were a lot of people on these lands already,

remember, Seneca Village, that was destroyed to create Central Park. They managed to survive the 1811 Commission.

“I can't remember how long that was around,”

but I wanna say, Seneca Village is around for a good 50 years before it was leveled in the 1850s. So it would have been around on the common lands during this time, but they're, like you said, about 39 or 40% of homeowners,

or established buildings had to be torn down, they filled in ponds, they filled in salt marshes, they completely altered the ecosystem. Of stuff that could have been built around or incorporated, have they stopped and thought about

how to do that, they just level everything and built a grid over it. And so a lot of people were really, really unhappy about this. And they were particularly unhappy that the city administration was just sticking to this,

no matter what, and there were a lot of lawsuits and all of them for what I understand it were unsuccessful. - Oh yeah, for about 60 years, there were tons of lawsuits going on. And I know you said it was a big eminent domain act,

“but I think still the largest act of eminent domain”

in New York City. - Yeah, and that includes Central Park and how they get their water, which was another good episode. - Yeah, because, I mean Central Park is huge,

but it's just a small sliver of this larger area. - Yeah, this one quote from landowner Clement Clark Moore, he published a pamphlet about the tyrannical commissioners' plan and it says this. Nothing is to be left unmolested,

which does not coincide with the street commissioners' plummet and level. These are men who would have cut down the seven hills of Rome. - Burn, big time. - Yep, so, did matter though.

- No, it's really didn't matter. They just went ahead with it blindly and thoughtlessly and did. And again, like it did accommodate growth, although they underestimated the growth,

but it took a little while for this stuff to fill up. This plan was delivered in 1811, but it wasn't until 1875 that enough people had started to move in that there were more New Yorkers living above 14th Street than there were living below it.

So that, I mean, it took a little while to fill in

“and it didn't even necessarily fill in uniformly”

by that same year in 1875, there's still 40,000 vacant lots left in this grid plan. And that was like about half of the space. - Yeah, I love that fact. - That's a good, Dave has some nice facts here at the end.

1869, the very first apartment building in New York

was built called the Styves Ant. And they called them, I don't even think they called 'em apartments at the time. It was called a French flat or a French house. But prior to that, it was, you know,

tournament houses and houses. And so, the Styves Ant is built. And everyone thinks it's silly that anyone would wanna live in the same building as other people. And they call it Styves Ant's folly.

But that it was at 142 East 18th between Irving Place and Third. And it was a huge hit, like people made fun of it in the newspapers, but people signed up to live there almost immediately it filled up.

It was demoed and replaced in 1960. But so this was 1869, very, it didn't take long though. And 1884, the Dakota was built, which still stands today. So apartment buildings kind of came into fashion.

“I think probably due just Styves Ant's folly.”

- Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it went over so well. And so quickly that it really opened the way for more and more to be built pretty cool. So one thing that people point to is this commissioners plan of 1811

is just like that same principle or the same significance that the Spanish coming in and imposing a grid over an indigenous settlement was somehow taming the wild or the organic or something like that. There's a, this is the turning point

between kind of unplanned organic, much more harmonious, naturally, New York. And the planned modern New York that we know and love today. This is where it went from one to the other, almost like flipping a switch and granted for decades

and decades to realize this plan. But when it was delivered and when it was adopted, that was that change happened and the transition began.

- Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

- I think so too. - What else is there for New York? I mean, I think here we got water, we got the subways covered, we got central park, we've got this. - Oh, yeah, let's see.

- There can't be much else as far as just the bones of, oh, I don't know what I wanna do, is maybe what? How that, how the mail and the trash work. - It's a miracle. - No, okay, all right, yeah. We did the Rockets once, even, too.

- Oh, that's right. I mean, we've done a lot in New York topics. It's true, maybe we should have moved to a different city. Let's start talking about Des Moines. - Holy cow, dude.

- It almost simultaneously came out of my mouth. - Des Moines? - Yes, it's so weird. It is weird. It's in the zeitgeist, apparently. - You got anything else? - I got nothing else.

- Okay, well, if you wanna know more about New York, to start reading and then eventually travel there, they'll give you the all clear when they're ready. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. (bell ringing)

- Hey guys, my 16 year old son, Owen, is probes your biggest fan for real. He also is narcolepsy. I appreciate you taking on this topic and bringing some understanding of it to the masses.

He was diagnosed with him as 10. And it affects every single aspect of his life. Think it has made him wise beyond his years, personally, and compassionate to other people with invisible struggles, but it still sucks.

- Yeah. - If you ever wanna read or hear firsthand accounts from people with narcolepsy, check out Julie Flygare, that is F-L-Y-G-A-R-E, or Flygare, I'm not sure. - That would you say that?

- Oh, I like the one with flavor, the second--

- Flygare? (laughs) - Who is doing all kinds of advocacy for people with narcolepsy, including a scholarship foundation. She founded Project Sleep and Voices of Narcolepsy.

She also read a great book about her experiences with being diagnosed during law school, called "Wide a Wake in Dreaming." When Owen received his diagnosis, I reached out to her for help.

She said, "I wanna care package with a book, a t-shirt, "respects, a very kind card, et cetera, "to let him know that he's not alone, that is very sweet." - It is.

“- I think she deserves an award for the work she's doing,”

anyway, a great resource for sure. Thanks for the work that you do. I mean, could we get an award? - You know, we've won a webbie before, I think? - Oh, this, too.

- Yeah, sometimes it's fun and entertaining,

in educational as well.

- And, sincerely, the mom of your biggest fan, and that is from Brooke.

- Thanks, Brooke, and thanks, Owen, for listening. It's really good to hear from you guys. And, I feel like we should send Owen to him too. - Sure. - Let's do it, Chuck, we'll figure it out.

- All right. - We can't be showing up by this fly-garry person. - No, no, no, send us your physical address and we'll mail you something. - That's right.

And, in the meantime, thanks for listening.

And, thanks for being a fan.

And, thank you for listening, and thank you for being a fan too.

“And, if you want to get in touch with us like Brooke did,”

you can send us an email. Wrap it up, sprinkle it on the bottom, and send it off to [email protected]. (upbeat music) - Stuff you should know is a production of I HeartRadio.

For more podcasts, my HeartRadio, visit the I HeartRadio app. Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. (upbeat music) - Hey, Portlandia fans.

- Carry Brownstein and Fred Armison here.

- The dream of the 90s is a live in podcast form. - We're launching Pod Landia AOW watch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together.

“Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters,”

and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. - And, we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Christle,

the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Man, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. - I thought you were all gonna write a song about it.

- I remember you thinking about it. Listen to Pod Landia, AOW watch on the I HeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. - And Shawn Clements.

“- We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook.”

Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. - And the show's famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes

and understand what's going on. - We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steambergen. - Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I HeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

- I'm Nick Tutorial. - You probably know me from NYU PD Blue, the longest shot, or Spike Lee's Black Plansman. - And on my no podcast, the Livering Happiness with Nick Tutorial, I deliver pizza to a new guest.

I've shared a slice with everyone. From Seth Rollins, where are you doing my belt? - To Bill Burr. - I don't think I've ever met somebody, so exactly out of them like this, I am.

- And now, we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tutorial. - Let's go happiness, delivering happiness. - And many, many more. - Open your free, high-hard radio app,

search delivering happiness with Nick Tutorial. And listen now. - This isn't I Heart Podcast, guaranteed human.