Streets and Avenues

I always like to learn some history about the places I visit before I go. Now that I have finished the homework for my conference, I am doing a little extra credit for my own information.

Often, the way a city is laid out gives clues to its history. For the most part, American cities have two different kinds of layouts. One includes the center of town with streets radiating outward, like the spokes of a wheel. Sometimes a city is planed this way, and sometimes it is the outgrowth of long ago cow paths. The second is a grid system, with streets running at right angles, to each other, like a checker board. The part of New York City known as Manhattan is, at least in part, the grid type. It is just twelve city blocks across, beginning at the Harlem/East River with First Avenue, going west to Twelfth Avenue and the Hudson River. Sixth Avenue, also known as The Avenue of the Americas, divides the island into the east and west sides. The east-west blocks are long ones. Seven Avenues make up one mile. So the island is a little less then two miles wide. Streets which run, more or less, north and south, are much shorter. It takes twenty streets to make up a mile. The Street blocks are numbered going up the island, moving up in numbers. However, at the south end the streets are more higgelty-piggelty. Most of them are named and the grid is broken up in many places by streets running diagonally. The south end developed first, and that part of the street system grew organically, without much official planning.

For the most part, I am visiting "Midtown Manhattan," a part of the city laid out by The Commissioner’s Plan of 1811. It sounds confusing to be at the corner of First and First (Avenue and Street). However, the grid system of Midtown Manhattan will help me to know how to get where I am going. Thank heaven!

By the way, looking at the map above, my hotel is across 6th Ave. from the Rockefeller Center.