Jason M. Barr             March 18, 2024 [Note this post is a part of a series on the history of New York’s grid plan. The entire series can be found here.] Manhattan 1.0 In 1811, the Street Plan Commissioners produced Manhattan’s grid system. Accompanying their map was a brief set of remarks highlighting their decisions. First, they felt a gridiron plan was best because “straight-sided and right-angled houses are the most cheap to build and the most convenient to live in.” Second, they believed there was little need for abundant park spac ..read more

Jason M. Barr          February 27, 2024 [Note: Starting Monday, March 4, 2024, Gerard Koeppel and I will be co-teaching a six-week online course on the history of the Manhattan grid plan for the Gotham Center for New York City History. More information and registration can be found here.] Planting the Seeds In April 1811, New York’s Street Plan Commission created the now-famous grid plan—but on paper only. The commissioners handed the City their map and said, “Goodbye and good luck.” Two of them, Simeon De Witt and Gouverneur Morris could now focus on t ..read more

Jason M. Barr          February 21, 2024 [Note: Starting on Monday, March 4, 2024, Gerard Koeppel and I will be co-teaching a six-week online course on the history of the Manhattan grid plan for the Gotham Center for New York City History. More information and registration can be found here.] “I’m on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe.” – Cosmo Kramer, Seinfeld, 4/30/1998 Gotham Reborn In 1783, Gotham lay in ruins. Seven years of British occupation inflicted many wounds, including confla ..read more

Jason M. Barr          February 13, 2024 [Note: Starting Monday, March 4, 2024, Gerard Koeppel and I will be co-teaching a six-week online course on the history of Manhattan grid plan for the Gotham Center for New York City History. More information and registration can be found here.] The Manhattan grid plan is one of New York’s most iconic elements, alongside the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, and the skyline. The grid forms a vital part of Manhattan’s identity—to walk its streets and feel its repetitive rectangles is to exp ..read more

Jason M. Barr              January 29, 2024 [Coming May 14, 2024: Cities in the Sky: The Quest for the the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers (Scribner Books)] What’s driving the affordability problem in New York City? If you ask a random person on the street, they’ll blame developers, who seemingly only build luxury towers for the well-to-do. But the developer might say that the land values are to blame—to recoup the high cost of the land and expensive construction costs, the only profitable new development is on the high end. As discu ..read more

Jason M. Barr               January 10, 2024 The billion-dollar question: What’s driving the housing affordability problem in large cities like New York? When looking to cast blame, people naturally pick developers. Clearly, the conventional wisdom goes, they are making the problem worse because all they do is build unaffordable luxury high-rises. Developers will argue, however, that given the high cost of land, the only way to make their investments work is to create a building that will produce enough revenue to pay for itself and the cost of land. Thus, hi ..read more

Jason M. Barr              December 14, 2023 The Birth of Economics Roughly speaking, the century from 1870 to 1970 can be called the Utopia-Was-Possible Century. By 1870, national incomes began rising faster than their populations; thus, economic growth was a fact of everyday life. This improvement in our material lives was created by the switch to industrial-wage-based manufacturing, technological improvements and economics of scale, cheap fossil fuel-based energy, and the rise of global trade and finance. The “fixed-pie-econom ..read more

Troy Tassier and Jason M. Barr         November 27, 2023 Prominent in the list of dangerous and aggressive nuisances are the tenement houses of the city….We thus speak of the inhabitants of the tenant-houses as constituting a class, and as being allied with the cause of sickness, pauperism, and crime. New York Times, June 12, 1865. Throughout the 19th century, New York City tenements garnered a reputation for vice, immorality, and, above all else, disease. As the above quote makes clear, most residents of tenement neighborhoods were lumped together and cons ..read more

Troy Tassier and Jason M. Barr         November 6, 2023 Those sickened must be cured or die off, & being cheifly [sic] of the very scum of the city, the quicker [their] despatch [sic] the sooner the malady will cease. John Pintard, a founder of the New York Historical Society and a former secretary of the New York Chamber of Commerce wrote these words to his daughter on July 13, 1832.  New York City’s first great cholera epidemic had begun just two weeks earlier. The outbreak continued through September and 3,500 cholera deaths were officially reco ..read more

Jason M. Barr                       August 14, 2023 Many cities around the world have severe housing affordability problems. One reason is overly restrictive zoning regulations. Zoning—the rules that dictate what can be built on each lot—was initially designed to control urban problems, including congestion, pollution, and shadows. Over time, however, planners made common cause with property owners to tighten the rules. Planners did not like urban density and were all too happy to redu ..read more