Friday, January 20, 2012

Friday Read: New York's Early Height Laws

In the past I've written about the effects of the design of New York's grid plan and particularly its division of blocks into lots of 25' by 100', dimensions that were, in the mid-19th century, incompatible with the construction of well-lit or ventilated apartment buildings. A 2003 paper published by the Cato Journal echoes these observations, but focuses on a less well-remembered aspect of New York's planning history: the building height act of 1885.

Although this law was overshadowed by the Tenement House Act of 1901 and even more so by the Zoning Resolution of 1916, the 1885 act established a precedent on building heights that would persist until the 1961 amendments to the New York zoning code and beyond.  The law, simple enough, capped building heights at 70 feet on narrower streets and 80 feet on the wide avenues – limits comparable to those found in European cities of the time – yet, unlike the laws of those cities, the New York ordinance only restricted residential buildings, leaving commercial structures, and hotels, unregulated.

The effects of this selective restriction are described:

"First, economic rents accrued immediately to owners of existing tall residential buildings due to the restriction of potential competition from the new buildings that would not now be built. …

"Second, developers of apartment buildings found themselves unable to compete with commercial-building interests for Manhattan building lots offering appeal either as residential or commercial sites. Prior to 1885, large apartment buildings had been constructed that not only competed with contemporary office buildings in their ground coverage but exceeded them in height.   This era now ended. …

"Finally, height restrictions helped prop up the tenement system by inhibiting the development of the tall apartment building as an indirect— and over time a direct—competitor. By preventing the development of tall residential buildings in Manhattan, height restrictions derailed a natural market process that would have lowered rents and increased quality beginning with the middle-class portion of the tenement market."
Although the law did not impose Euclidean zoning on the city, in effect the law zoned all buildings over the height limit as commercial, since these could no longer be converted to residential use.  In doing so, it anticipated the explicit zoning by use in the 1916 act.

The law also had long term implications for the arrangement of jobs and residences.  The observation that apartment buildings taller and larger than office buildings were beginning to appear in the city makes sense when we consider that office buildings have many more workers, per square foot, than apartment buildings have residents.  To fill the new office towers by pedestrian traffic would have required an even greater number of nearby residential towers.  With these prohibited, it would fall to mass transit to link the increasingly tall office buildings of lower Manhattan and Midtown with the residents of the six and seven story residential buildings spreading northwards up the island.

The strict height limits of the 1885 law were moderated somewhat in 1897, when New York moved to permit residential buildings of up to 12 stories on all streets.  This arrangement quickly gave way, in 1901, to the familiar "1 and 1/2" height formula, which restricted apartment buildings to the width of the adjacent street plus 50 percent.  It was this limit which was incorporated into the 1916 zoning resolution for residential areas, and which persisted for the most part until 1961, severely depressing the market for apartment construction in the city – with the exception of the avenues, where the formula yielded buildings of profitable dimensions (the claim of New York's planning department that the 1916 code could have accommodated 55 million seems questionable to say the least).

Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that the city's ultimate remedy for the so-called tenement problem – the form of the tenements and their persistence a direct consequence of city planning decisions dating back to 1811 – was to demolish tenement areas and replace them with high-rise apartments of the sort that the city had barred the private sector from building in the critical years from 1885 to 1930.  As New York reexamines its zoning code, will the city pause to consider its 200 years of planning history candidly and critically to see what lessons might be learned?

Related posts:
Blocks of New York
Living Space, Working Space and Centralization
Height Limits: The Forgotten Debates

25 comments:

  1. It kind of makes sense. The Tammany bosses were making a lot of money off of kickbacks from mass transit. The Manhatten Elevated Railroad Company was particularly corrupt. Plus I'm sure they would have been only too happy to accomodate a builder who understood how to grease the wheels of commerce.

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  2. Charlie, thanks yet again and again for this very interesting link to this Cato paper by Michael Montgomery, as well as the Stuart Rosenthal paper on filtering!

    I haven't had a chance to give either of these papers, or your own posts the attention they deserve -- and probably won't for a little while, as I just, moments ago, got back from the Museum of the City of New York's "Greatest Grid" exhibit and would like to read the catalog (and perhaps revisit the exhibit) and write about them first.

    However, from a quick skimming, it seems to me that the Montgomery / Cato paper may have a severe "blooper" (or at least something that is VERY poorly written) that would make me skeptical about the accuracy and usefulness of the rest of his paper.

    Michael Montgomery wrote [added emphasis is mine -- BH]:

    "These problems largely stemmed, remarkably, from decisions made in 1811, when the city IMPOSED A UNIFORM LOT SIZE of 25-by-100 feet on all real estate (roughly) north of 14th Street (the approximate extent of development in 1811)."

    Benjamin Hemric writes:

    Perhaps I'm not understanding Montgomery correctly or maybe he's just a "sloppy" writer but, as far as I know, the City of New York has never "imposed a uniform lot size of 25-by-100 feet on all real estate (roughly) north of 14th Street . . . "

    If Montgomery means, instead, that under 1811 street plan, 25 feet-by-100 feet sized lots made great business sense and were very popular and this influence the housing that was built (which the two commentators cited, among others, seem to disapprove of), which I think is the case, than his statement would seem to me to be a very poorly written one -- one that would make me skeptical about the rest of his paper.

    Benjamin Hemric
    Friday, January 20, 2012, 8:50 pm

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  3. Richard Pluntz in A History of Housing in NYC (which you should definitely read – it's excellent) says that the height regulations were routinely skirted, and there were in fact plenty of buildings built post-1885 but pre-1916 that are much taller than allowed by law (pg. 194). The loophole was that they were called "apartment hotels" and therefore were not elligible. Nevertheless, obviously the 1916 code did put some hard limits on height, and I can buy that pre-1916, developers were more hesitant about building tall buildings because of the illegality.

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  4. Also – I'm not sure the 55 million number is that far off. I believe the 1916 code allowed significantly more development in the more suburban parts of the outer boroughs than the 1961 code (which is what we're more or less stuck with today). Now, of course it would be difficult for a mass transit system to serve a population of 55 million that's so uniformly distributed at a height (but never extremely high) density across the wilds of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. But if the transportation part were worked out, 55 million is plausible.

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  5. Re: Ben's comment, it's true that they didn't impose the 25'x100' plot, but they pretty much prescribed the 100' part by the distance between streets (200 ft), and most of the critiques of the grid I've seen are based on this 10' dimension, not the 25' one – some tenements (well, the model ones anyone) were built 33' wide (you just buy lots in sets of three), and many tenements later on were 100'x100'. It was sloppy wording, and maybe he even believed it, but I don't think it's an error worthy of disqualification.

    (Now, missing the fact that tons of buildings were built illegally between 1885 and 1916 seems a bit more serious.)

    Speaking of which, you should definitely read this book by Plutz as well, Benjamin – I've at least tripled my knowledge on the topic through reading it.

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  6. In short: when New York suffers from unanticipated consequences of regulation, the solution is always more regulation.

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  7. Thanks, Stephen -- I'll have to pick that one up. I do remember reading in Fogelson's book that height limits were routinely ignored in Chicago around the same time, or, at least, those with money and influence were able to exempt themselves from them. It seems that if a height limit is to be applied consistently and without exception, it must come from the legislature in the form of a statute (e.g. Washington DC, or Madison, WI).

    So it's not surprising that the limit would have been subject to loopholes and exceptions. Still, I think you are probably right that such a restriction would have slowed the construction of such buildings, or, as Montgomery says, given an advantage to office buildings in the competition for land. For what it's worth, the Council on Tall Buildings list shows an explosion in the construction of tall (20 stories plus) apartment buildings immediately after 1961, with very few having been built prior to that time:

    http://buildingdb.ctbuh.org/?do=create&search=yes&list_city=US-NYC&list_function=all&page=9

    Of course the 1961 law gave with one hand while taking away the generous outer-borough zoning of the 1916 act with the other, as you mention. The reason I was skeptical was that residential zones were held to much lower heights than the office zones, suggesting that the 55 million figure might have been using the height limits for office buildings, rather than residential buildings, or perhaps used antiquated population densities in the calculation.

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  8. @Benjamin: you're absolutely right that there was never an "imposition" of the 25' x 100' lot, but nonetheless most of the land parceled out was sold in lots of roughly those dimensions. You can still see the legacy of that process throughout the city. As Stephen alludes to, lots could not be divided along the 100' length since the rear parcel would have no street frontage. Lots were combined into larger parcels later on, but larger apartment buildings with footprints of 100x75 and 100x100 were not built on a large scale until after 1900 or so.

    I look forward to reading your thoughts on the NY exhibit.

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  9. I don't think the 55 million number is that far off. That amounts to about 180,000ppsm on average across the whole city. I don't really know how to use the US census data but I would think many midrise neighbourhoods in Manhattan are at or close to that density. Of course that leaves no room for parks, industrial or commercial uses, and it would make sense to have higher densities in Manhattan than the outlying parts of the city proper.

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  10. @Nicolas: I think you are right that it may not be that far off. Subtracting parks, airports, and other non-buildable space would require a density closer to 200,000, which a few census tracts on the Upper East side approach (for the 2000 census, the highest tend to be at or slightly over 180,000 ppsm, and that is with relatively little office space and no industrial).

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  11. Regarding how dense you can go without highrises in the developed world, the neighbourhood of Can Mariner in the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet has a density 214,000ppsm and 8000 residents. While the streets are much narrower than those of New York, the tallest building is only 6 stories with 4 stories being more typical. With the 1 1/2 rule, a 60ft street would allow for a 8-9 storey building. I assume streets in this context would be the entire ROW?

    The standard city block is 922x260ft with 60ft streets and 100ft avenues, so that would be about 14 floors on avenues and 8 on streets. The portion of the block that isn't streets would be 200x822ft. Let's say the buildings are attached to each other and 50 deep so that windows are within 25ft of the backyard/courtyard or the street from any point of the buildings. The courtyard would be 722x100ft. This would yield an FSI of 3.91 and at a density of 180,000ppsm that would amount to 606sf of floorspace per person.

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  12. @Nicolas: the blocks along the Upper East Side are mostly 400x200, as they have been bisected by the 80-foot wide Madison and Lexington Avenues, while Park Avenue is 140 feet wide. One of these blocks, built out to the maximum height allowable under the 1916 law, and supposing four apartment buildings of 100x100 dimensions facing the avenues and eight I-shaped apartments of 50x100 on the block interiors (with space deducted for courtyards) yields a total FAR of 5.41.

    That FAR is derived from a total square footage of 718,400, which, when adjusted to a per mile basis and reduced for non-yield space (hallways, elevators, lobbies, etc) should easily support densities in excess of 200,000 per square mile. At 200,000, each person has 800 square feet, very high for Manhattan. At a more reasonable 600 square feet, 250,000 could be accommodated.

    The difference between the calculated and the observed appears to be due to the presence of institutional buildings, some office space and the persistence of townhomes on many of the cross streets, which may be attributable in part to historic preservation laws:

    http://www.friends-ues.org/historic-districts-and-landmarks/

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  13. So what you're saying is the 250,000ppsm scenario would have 600sf of living space per person, correct? I wonder what the average amount of square feet per person is in various cities. It seems like the US nationwide average is 916sf with a mean of 675sf, but that includes suburbs and the countryside, so I would expect it to be less in NYC.

    Source: www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/Measuring_Overcrowding_in_Hsg.pdf

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  14. Right. In an earlier post I'd estimated the square feet per person in Manhattan to be around 700, but that does still seem high, given that the average studio is somewhere between 400 and 600 feet, and larger apartments would tend to have even less square feet per person as occupancies rise. On the other hand, the Upper East Side is a very wealthy area with numerous large apartments, so it's entirely possible that the average is on the high side for the city.

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  15. PART ONE of FOUR (?)

    Stephen Smith wrote [added text and numbering between brackets and added emphasis is mine -- BH]:

    Re: Ben's comment, it's true that they didn't IMPOSE the 25'x100' plot, but [1] they PRETTY MUCH PRESCRIBED the 100' part by the distance between streets (200 ft), and [2] most of the critiques of the grid I've seen are based on this 10[0?]' [part of the block?] dimension, not the 25' one -– some tenements (well, the model ones anyone) were built 33' wide (you just buy lots in sets of three), and many tenements later on were 100' x 100'. [3] IT WAS SLOPPY WORDING, and [4] MAYBE HE EVEN BELIEVED IT, but [5] I don't think it's an error worthy of DISQUALIFICATION.

    Benjamin Hemric writes:

    Regarding [1] -- As I tried to indicate in my original comment, I think there is a very big difference difference between, essentially, "allowing," "facilitating," "encouraging" or even "'pretty much' prescribing" [which I don't think is really true, see further below] a given lot size and IMPOSING a given lot size -- a supposedly UNIFORM one at that! The second alternative is pretty "unbelievable" -- what city would do this and for what reason? -- and makes the city's lawmakers and citizens appear to be crazy!

    Regarding [3], and [4]:

    I don't know if it was just plain sloppiness or whether the author actually believed it, but in either case I believe it's important to challenge it. because ultimately someone down the line WILL take it at face value.

    In fact, I'm guessing that that is exactly what happened here. Either Plunz or Jackson probably used this sloppy language and then you have a reader of their work -- a Ph.D. no less -- either repeating their sloppy language or believing it.

    Benjamin Hemric
    Mon., Jan. 23, 2012, 8:15 p.m.

    P.S. -- While I hope to complete the other parts of this post tonight, I may have to submit them later.

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  16. PART TWO of FOUR (?)

    By the way, the first instance where I recall noticing this phenomenon is perhaps the most interesting example of it. One of the academics who has written about the Moses and Washington Square Park roadway controversy has very sloppily written (or maybe even believed it) that Fifth Avenue "stopped" at the park. Technically speaking, this could be considered true (the portion of the roadway that was called Fifth Avenue stopped at Washington Square Park, although the roadway itself -- and, more importantly -- the automobiles that used it continued right through the park.

    Then, if I remember correctly, two writers on Jane Jacobs, more or less copied the "first" writer's statement verbatim in their books on Jane Jacobs -- although it appears even more likely that they actually believed that the roadway itself (as opposed to the name of the roadway) stopped at Washington Square Park. In their version, however, it seems to me to be even more of a misstatement than in the earlier article.

    Then, almost unbelievable, a later third writer seems to be saying the same thing, using pretty much the same language -- but this writer actually LIVED across the street from the park in the years in question!!!! So, if she's not just being a sloppy writer herself, the sloppy and/or inaccurate writing that preceded hers seems to have actually changed her memories!!!! (By the way, there is plenty of photographic proof, etc. that the roadway and the cars did not stop at Washington Square North but continued through the park.

    PLUS when Jane Jacobs wrote about the roadway herself in "Death and Life . . . " she made a big deal of the fact that protestors were not just trying to stop an enlargement of a roadway but were trying to get existing traffic out of the park altogether. So even if these writers don't actually believe that traffic stopped at the park, they seem to be oblivious of one of Jane Jacobs' main points.

    Benjamin Hemric
    Mon. Jan. 23, 2012, 8:20 p.m.

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  17. PART THREE of FOUR (?)

    Regarding [5}:

    Of course each of Michael Montgomery's statements have to stand or fall on the evidence and logic presented for each one of them. My point is that given what seems to be either a serious factual error or very sloppy writing about something that is well know, I'm not encouraged to make time to read his work and also feel less likely to "trust" his other statements. (In other words, I'd have to really "dig deep" before I'd be comfortable relying on other information he presents as fact.)

    Benjamin Hemric
    Mon. Jan. 23, 2012, 8:25 p.m.

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  18. PART FOUR of FOUR (?)

    Stephen Smith wrote:

    Speaking of which, you should definitely read this book by Pluntz as well[.] Benjamin[,] I've at least tripled my knowledge on the topic through reading it.

    Benjamin Hemric writes:

    Actually I have read the Pluntz book, although it was a number of years ago, but I didn't/don't have it handy at the moment. The reason I got it out of the library, by the way, was because it just seemed to be cited all over the place and, as it turns out (and as you point out), it is indeed excellent and a classic -- an achievement that the author can justly be proud of.

    HOWEVER, as with any book, even a well researched one, one shouldn't of course just accept an author's opinions as fact. We all (including this author) have our own "lenses" (or ideologies) through which we see the world.

    If I remember correctly, Pluntz's training is as an architect, so his professional ideology is that of an architect (e.g., architecture, particular the architecture of housing, can and should "save the world").

    He is also very much on the left/liberal side of the political spectrum. (Before I read the book, and before I may have even read about his housing book, I attended one of his lectures, and I was struck by how VERY leftist / liberal he was. It really permeated his lecture. )

    Now, this doesn't mean, of course, that one should automatically discount (or accept) what he writes, but I being aware of his ideologies does help one to understand and to examine his work better.

    Have to rush off, so will not have time to examine these issues further tonight. Hopefully I'll get a chance to continue tomorrow.

    Benjamin Hemric
    January 23, 2012, 8:50 p.m.

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  19. Stephen Smith wrote [numbering within brackets is mine -- BH]:

    " . . . it's true that they didn't impose the 25'x100' plot, [1] but they pretty much prescribed the 100' part by the distance between streets [I think what is meant here is the width of a block between streets?] (200 ft) . . . "

    Charlie Gardener then wrote [numbering within brackets is mine]:

    "@Benjamin: you're absolutely right that there was never an "imposition" of the 25' x 100' lot, [2] but nonetheless most of the land parceled out was sold in lots of roughly those dimensions. You can still see the legacy of that process throughout the city. As Stephen [Smith] alludes to, [3] lots could not be divided along the 100' length since the rear parcel would have no street frontage. [4] Lots were combined into larger parcels later on, but larger apartment buildings with footprints of 100 x 75 and 100 x 100 were not built on a large scale until after 1900 or so.

    Benjamin Hemric writes:

    Before I address the issues raised in Charlie's post and further address the issues raised in Stephen's post, I'd like to ask for a clarification, as I'm not sure if I understand what is being said in "statements" [1] and [3].

    As I see it, the 1811 grid only forecloses lots that are "wider" than 200 feet (because that is the maximum width of a block), and it therefore allows for parcels that are as large as 200 feet "wide" and 600 feet to 800 feet "long" (off hand, I don't remember the precise lengths of the blocks between various streets, but they were roughly along these lines), depending on the block.

    It seems to me that the fact that most parcels, especially early parcels, were 25' x 100' in size is because this was the most popular size for the most popular type of building then being built in the city -- the row house. Whether the city had a grid or not, doesn't really seem all that relevant -- or it is relevant only in facilitating "regularly" shaped small parcels.

    In most cases people wouldn't want a larger lot size -- what would they do with it? Generally speaking, in those days people really weren't building larger buildings anyway, and in those relatively rare cases where people did want to build larger buildings (e.g., for a church), they did buy larger parcels.

    But given that buildings in general, especially private buildings, weren't all that large in those days (even public buildings were relatively small by today's standards), it is quite likely that most parcels would be small anyway -- regardless of whether the street system was a orthogonal (sp?) grid or not. The grid only facilitated the standardization and regular shape of the properties.

    It's interesting to note that in at least two non-grid blocks, where the blocks were irregularly shaped, interior courtyards and/or "streets" were built on the property and the houses that were built were STILL about 25' ft. wide (or less). For example see, in Greenwich Village, Grove Court (famous for supposedly being the setting for O'Henry's story "The Last Leaf") and Patchin and Milligan (sp?) Places.

    So, statements [2] and [4] seem irrelevant with regard to whether the 1811 grid "imposed," "prescribed" etc. lot sizes of 25' by 100'. As mentioned earlier in this post, it seems to me that the "only" things the grid did was a) facilitate "standard" sizes (which might have been a pretty good thing) and b) strongly discouraged buildings having two dimensions larger than 200' -- but, for the most part, nobody wanted to build such buildings anyway!!!

    It wasn't until many years later that people wanted to build larger buildings, and even then I doubt there was much demand for plots that would be both more than 200 ft. "wide" and 200 ft. deep.

    Benjamin Hemric
    Thurs., Jan. 26, 2012, 8:35 p.m.

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  20. Some additional thoughts -- and questions, especially for Stephen Smith and Alon Levy, as they seem unusually familiar with transit in non-US (i.e., more commonly non-gridded) cities.

    If I remember correctly, the "Greatest Grid" exhibit mentions that a street grid facilitates subway construction, especially the kind of cut and cover subway construction that was utilized in New York City.

    It seems to me that NYC's extensive street grid also facilitated large networks of street cars (e.g., horse drawn street cars, cable cars and trolleys) AND elevated trains.

    Of course, I realize that gridless cities around the globe, indeed, probably have more street cars than gridded American cities -- but my guess is that NYC's grid allowed for street cars on virtually any and every street, while non-gridded cities had fewer options for street cars.

    I'm wondering if perhaps the grid was even more significant for NYC' network of elevated lines. Yes, elevated lines can snake along irregularly laid out streets (as in the famous "S" curve in downtown's Coenties Slip) and even make occasional right-angled turns when they have too, but it would seem that a large network of gridded streets would have greatly facilitated an efficient system of "elevated" trains in a way that a non-gridded street system wouldn't.

    Finally, I'm curious about how subways are built and operated in non-gridded cities (e.g., London and Rome). Was it necessary to lay them out along relatively few long straight streets (or were such straight streets created for subway construction, as they were in the portions of NYC that weren't gridded), or are the tunnels so deep (as in, perhaps, the London tubes) that the subways don't have to travel along straight streets. Or do the subways, do a lot of zig zagging?

    Again, although it does seem possible, obviously, to have subways in a non-gridded city, a gridded street system does seem to greatly facilitate an extensive, easily operated, subway system.

    However, a grid would seem to even more beneficial for "surface" (e.g., street car) and "elevated" lines.

    Benjamin Hemric
    Thurs., Jan. 26, 2012, 8:55 p.m.

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  21. @Benjamin (sorry to be responding only now):

    As I see it, the 1811 grid only forecloses lots that are "wider" than 200 feet (because that is the maximum width of a block), and it therefore allows for parcels that are as large as 200 feet "wide" and 600 feet to 800 feet "long" (off hand, I don't remember the precise lengths of the blocks between various streets, but they were roughly along these lines), depending on the block.

    It seems to me that the fact that most parcels, especially early parcels, were 25' x 100' in size is because this was the most popular size for the most popular type of building then being built in the city -- the row house. Whether the city had a grid or not, doesn't really seem all that relevant -- or it is relevant only in facilitating "regularly" shaped small parcels.


    The width was indeed based around an understanding that the lots would be used for rowhouses, but with a 100' depth the area of land was so large that it was not cost effective, in a city like New York, to use them for that purpose in places like the Lower East Side. Thus an owner had two options: sell part of the land and build a rowhouse on the remainder, or build an apartment building.

    My comments were directed to the fact that, because New York barred the opening of alleys, an owner could not divide his land into two 25' x 50' foot lots (perfectly adequate for a townhouse), and yet lots of 12' x 100' were not marketable. The problem was not the assembly of land into larger parcels, but the impossibility of further subdividing them.

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  22. Benjamin: sorry for only seeing your last comment now. The answer is that although surface transit (buses, streetcars) greatly benefits from a grid, rapid transit does not - it's universally hub-and-spoke, though the big systems have multiple hubs, and a fair amount of connectivity between secondary centers. Usually rapid transit follows major roads, and in ungridded cities they tend to be continuous through multiple neighborhoods. Major squares tend to lie at the intersection of multiple important roads, and thus get to be key transfer stations.

    The new light rail systems are built like rapid transit - that is, faster than streetcars and with higher capacity, but also more expensive - and so do not form tight meshes except in downtown areas. The same principles above apply: they'll find major streets and connect them on the surface. The lack of grade separation would make junctions work a bit differently, but so far no city that I know of has built a new light rail system as large as even a medium-sized rapid transit network.

    Now, the Manhattan grid helped rapid transit in that it was possible to build the lines with four tracks. It also reduces construction costs, first because it's easier to tunnel under a straight, wide street, and second because transfer stations would only have two levels. However, the grid's advantages in constructability are not advantages in operation; only surface transit gains operational benefits from a grid.

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  23. Charlie Gardner wrote [I've rearranged the text to express my understanding of Charlie's comment. Added text within brackets is mine. -- BH]:

    The problem was not the assembly of land into larger parcels, but [rather] the impossibility of further subdividing them. My comments were directed to the fact that, because New York barred the opening of alleys, an owner could not divide his land into two 25' x 50' foot lots (perfectly adequate for a townhouse), and yet lots of 12' x 100' were not marketable.

    The width was indeed based around an understanding that the lots would be used for rowhouses, but with a 100' depth the area of land was so large that it was not cost effective, in a city like New York, to use them for that purpose in places like the Lower East Side. Thus an owner had two options: sell part of the land and build a rowhouse on the remainder, or build an apartment building.

    Benjamin Hemric writes:

    No problem with the delay -- my comment itself was rather late in an "old" thread, so I wasn't even sure that people would think to read it.

    Thanks for the clarification! I'm not sure if I totally agree with the criticisms being made, but they make more sense than what I thought was being said -- and they are food for further thought and discussion.

    Benjamin Hemric
    Mon., January 30, 2012, 7:25 pm

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  24. Alon Levy wrote [added numbering and added text within brackets is mine -- BH]:

    [1] Benjamin: sorry for only seeing your last comment now. The answer [to your questions] is that although surface transit (buses, streetcars, [and "elevateds"]) greatly benefits from a grid, rapid transit does not -- [2] [subways are] universally hub-and-spoke, though the big systems have multiple hubs, and a fair amount of connectivity between secondary centers. Usually [the subway line of a large metropolitan subway system] follows major roads, and [3] in ungridded cities [subways] tend to be continuous through multiple neighborhoods.

    Benjamin Hemric writes:

    Regarding [1]: Again (as I mentioned with Charlie), no problem with the delay -- my comment itself was so late in an "old" thread, I wasn't even sure that people would think to read it.

    Thanks, Alon, for your thoughtful and extensive reply. But I wonder if my original comments / questions were not as clear as I had hoped they would be, as I'm not sure if your statements [2] and [3] -- if I'm understanding them correctly -- address the questions that I had in mind.

    While it's true that city-wide "metropolitan" subway systems of large, world-class cities usually have hub-and-spoke arrangements overall, my questions were more about the subway lines of these systems that run through the core areas (the "downtowns") of such large cities.

    To clarify a bit (I hope), after coming back from the "Greatest Grid" exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, I was thinking about how the adoption of the 1811 grid, with its provision for a relatively large number of wide, straight streets, affected the history / growth of New York City (i.e., Manhattan) -- whether it happened to give Manhattan certain advantages (or disadvantages) with regard to pubic transportation over other cities (e.g., London, Rome, etc.) that were non-gridded.

    Not being familiar, though, with the operation / history of subways in these other, non-gridded cities, I was wondering if this was really true. How were subway lines built in the downtown cores of these other cities? Was it necessary to place these lines beneath wide straight streets and, if so, were these streets latter day creations (e.g., the boulevards of Paris), or maybe even created expressly for the subways (as some of NYC's wide straight streets were)? Did this increase the cost / difficulty of subway construction in the downtown cores of these cities?

    Were subways built along wide meandering streets that might have been part of the original street system of a downtown core? If the subway lines in the downtown core follow the lines of old streets, do they meander more than those in NYC do? Etc.

    So the question is has a relative dearth of wide straight streets in non-gridded cities discouraged the construction of even more subways lines in the downtown cores of these cities? Looking at it the other way, are the wide-straight streets of the 1811 grid partly responsible for Manhattan's dense grid of subways (and, in the past, its dense grid of elevateds and street cars lines)? Or has any added expense / difficulty been negligible compared to other factors?

    Benjamin Hemric
    Mon., January 30, 2012, 10:50 pm

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  25. Property records show the British Virgin Islands-registered company Golden Map Ltd bought at least two apartments. london apartments

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