Streets of New York: A brief history

With the help of a dubious deal (in 1626 ¹), the Dutch managed to usurp the Manahatta tribe of their island, then spend the following 100 years arguing with the British about who was in charge of New York's harbour. The southern tip of Manhattan became the major part of the city. It provided its residents with “a collection of warehouses, homes, docks, churches and government buildings.” ²

In the early 1800s, New York's population was flourishing. The reason behind this fact was its geographical location: from all over Europe, people kept flooding the city. In order to accommodate so many new inhabitants, the city as well as the state agreed on the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. It explains “that there would be 12 main North-South avenues and a series of East-West perpendicular cross streets, with Broadway being the only angled road, crossing from the Northwestern corner of Manhattan to the Southeastern corner.” ³

Nowadays, New York has not changed much. It is still the visualization of the plan from 1811. Over time, some of the Streets have been renamed “but there are still 11 avenues numbered from East to West and streets are still approximately the same size they were originally.” ⁴

Avenues start on the east side of Manhattan ⁵ In comparison, It is much easier to visualize the streets of Manhattan than the avenues. Nearly all of them are numbered. The Streets are one-way and proceed west and east. ⁶