The Grid that Made Manhattan

Those who live and work in NYC or have just visited surely notice the very regular grid of numbered streets and avenues that make it easy to get around much of Manhattan. But for many years after its founding, the city grew in disorganized and organic ways, until the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 laid out the vision for what it would become today.

Join us to take a deep dive into how this new plan was conceived and implemented, and learn about the many traces of the process that remain even to the present day. We’ll learn about how the city grew from prehistory through colonial times, an eccentric Founding Father who guided the grid plan, what it took for an intrepid surveyor to lay it out, and how in the following decades we both filled in and also changed the grid.

Presented by:  Architect, educator, and experience provider Erik Hodgetts loves to share his enthusiasm for the unique story of New York City. An FIT instructor, he also leads tours of city neighborhoods that delve into their hidden histories and sample local foods.