Interesting article in the NYT with a cool interactive map...if you're into that sort of thing.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/nyregion/21grid.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/21/nyregion/map-of-how-manhattan-grid-grew.html

There's an exhibit on this at the Museum of the City of New York

http://www.mcny.org/exhibitions/current/The-Greatest-Grid.html

Can you imagine the hassle it mustive been to transform the irregular metes & bounds landholdings of Manhattan, completed with country villages like Harlem, into the gridiorn plan.  I guess all the landholders were somehoe assigned city blocks and compensated for the street rights-of-way?  The real estate/surveying/valuation & compensation aspect of this mustve been a nightmare.

 

^ you bet. im working on a chelsea neighborhood thread right now (stay tuned) and i just read how major property owner clement clarke moore was not happy at all about his estate getting split up by the gridplan avenues.

 

i also know the much later avenue extensions south into greenwich village were done by eminent domain for the subway, which was cut&cover downtown. the visual carnage that order wrought on the oddball streets of the village is still very obvious to this day.

Definitely going to this exhibit when I'm in NYC next month...