The 300 Years of Manhattan Broadway 1620s to 1920s

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The 300 Years ofManhattan Broadway 1620s to 1920sAuthor | Eugnie Guo: [email protected]


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FOREWORDS

The research had started in fall of 2010 long before I felt ready to address the first sentence of my history thesis. It all started

from the field research as we architecture students would call it.

Emotion flooded the moment Manhattans outline became vivid when I looked out of the window from the cabin of plane in an

October afternoon in 2010. I was perturbed because Id always been a New York enthusiast, however for a long time I had only

heard complaints about this egodystonic metropolitan city. Perpendicularly intersecting streets and stereotyped buildings rising

along those streets contribute to the panorama - as if being rigorously ordered is a request and respect to the planning of the

Manhattan Island, resembling a kind of obligation. Yet what truly demonstrates in front of your eyes is an ever chaotic mush

mountains of information shuttling in concrete jungles day and night, carried by spirited yet impetuous mobility into dispersed

hierarchies and cultures, with simultaneously innumerable types of thoughts, tones and gestures emerging in a stringent palette

of urban setting.

The Broadway in Manhattan, literally and rhetorically, is like a thread converging the evolutionary 370 years, since the settler

David Pietersen de Vries already observed the Wickquasgeck Indians passing over it in 1640s. Truism is, that Broadway as one

of the paradigms is not representing the preset rule of spatial organization, it declares a major exception. This meandering

Broadway looks very cynical with regard to the prescribed urban pattern on the Manhattan Island. Broadway broke the rigid

dominance derived from those rigorously divided and distributed blocks, at least it is what it seems from the aerial view -

nowadays and perhaps already in 1920s when those high rise jungles distinguished (highlighted) the pattern severely in third

dimension. You cannot tell what came first what came later, the Broadway of lordly grandeur and majesty or the grids

aggressively neatly fragmented as if it were inherent. It is just simply confusing. On the other hand, the Dutch lineage in New

York is intriguing rather than just interesting to one with Dutch background and more intriguing and complicated (or more like a

mixed feeling) to someone who is not Dutch but has been living as Dutch for a while and thats me. This subtle mentality took

effect when I was wandering in S.William Street and suddenly ran into those Dutch merchant houses with typical crow-stepped

gable in bricks.

In the three hundred years of New Yorks development, what has Broadway, as the most knowledgeable and competent witness

of the citys history, experienced aside from prosperity, order and intensity? The pattern we see today, contains how many layersof historical stratifications?

The research apparatus is neither distant nor obscure, but rigorous first-hand feedback through eyes and hearts. I tried to

picture myself as a narrator in documentary, seeking to vibrantly depict the history of development while taking a vantage point

from today as I put it: flash-forward, just like the montage method applied in movie making.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Special thanks to Rajan Ritoe, my tutor from the Studio Terraventure where I accomplished the primary research and the whole

group of fellow students from whom I gained enormous knowledge about the evolution of New York City. Also my friend Anqi

Yang from Columbia University, with whom we shared some great conversations on the city from a local perspective..

I would like to dedicate this work to the city of Amsterdam and the city of New Amsterdam.


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If New York City has a Main Street one single thoroughfare that reflects its history and foretells its future that embodies its

power and poverty, that has been shaped by its overwhelming commercial and cultural ambitions that street is Broadway. It is

easily the longest street in Manhattan, running from the bottom of the island to the top. It is also one of the oldest streets. More

remarkable, however, is its vitality. Broadway has always been at the heart of civic affairs and remains so today. The path of

almost everyone who lives in or visits New York must cross it at some point.

- On Broadway A Journey Uptown Over Time, David W. Dunlap


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FOREWORDS 1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 1

INTRODUCTION 4

THE DUTCH SETTLEMENT 1621 1664 5

BRITISH NEW YORK 1665 1783 8

MERCANTILE TOWN 1784 1843 12

EMPORIUM AND MANUFACTURING CITY 1844 1879 18

THE MODERN CITY AND ISLAND 1880 1920S 22

AFTERWORDS 26

BIBLIOGRAPHY 27

APPENDIX 29


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Being just emerged from the long contest with Spain, the Dutch were ready for fresh new adventures, one of which had been the

case with the timely exploration of the river named after Henry Hudson (c.1560/70s 1611?), the English navigator whose feat

was under the auspices of The United East India Company1 . Having failed in finding a northwest passage to the richest of the

Orient, however, on 12 September 1609, Hudson found something even better - one of the biggest and nature harbors in the

world the lower Hudson Valley and the islands of New Yorks harbor were discovered. Hudson then brought a hugeinducement back to Europe for the desiring shrewd traders and merchants from lowlands.

The Dutch had always been enterprising, in order to reduce risks hidden in the long journey on sea for ships, they established

first a settled agency ( ) to superintend the collection of the valuable furs and other trading goods with the Indians.

And that was in 1613, just four years after Hudsons discovery. Where the trading post situated is in the area of todays Church

Street, where WTC stood. The imperial state of commercial spirit came from this very humble Dutch foundation.

In 1614, merchants from Amsterdam and Hoorn formed The New Netherland Company which was granted by the States

General of the United Provinces a three year monopoly for fur trading in the newly discovered region in North America. The

Hollanders had extended their traffic as far north as the upper waters of the Hudson and built ( ) with eight

families already settled there and begun to cultivate the land.

1In 1602, the States-General of the United Provinces (known as the Netherlands) chartered the United East Indies Company ( the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC).

2 Fort Orange ( Fort Oranje in Dutch) was on the site of present city of Albany, NY. It was a replacement for Fort Nassau. After conquest by the English, Fort Orange was renamed Fort

Albany and soon abandoned.


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Until then the area was not colonized and all those merchants were with business purposes only. As soon as the three-year

monopoly expired, the States General decided to grant a monopoly to a company that would colonize the area as a permanent

political presence in these colonies in New Netherland against English, French or Spanish rivals, this came with the birth of the

Dutch West India Company3 , a much more maturely organized and more extensive association. The charter gave WIC the

exclusive privilege of trade on the whole American coast of both northern and southern continents, so far as the jurisdiction ofHolland extended. In 1621, the newly incorporated Dutch West India Company, standing to their twenty-four year trading

monopoly, sought to endow the New Netherland with a provincial status, so that the settlement could officially begin. On March

29, 1624 the first wave of Dutch settlers4 came and were spread out over the entire territory claimed by the Dutch West India

Company. A part of them stayed at the mouth of the Hudson River and Fort Orange.

The intercourse between the Dutch and the aboriginal Indians was friendly for some time until 1625 a war between local tribes

swept away the peace. Those who settled in Fort Orange thus were in need of a safer place. The Director General of the WIC

Company Peter Minuit made decision to purchase the Manhattan Island ( a convenient place abounding with grass) from

Indian proprietors for the sum of sixty guilders worth of trade goods. Immediately afterwards, 5 was erected on

the southern tip of Manhattan island, as administrative headquarter for those forced to leave from Fort Orange and new

emigrants. The new settlement had about 270 inhabitants, including some newborn infants. The fort served as the capital of the

province New Netherland ever since.

Upon this purchase, about twenty-two thousand acres became vested in the Dutch West India Company promptly. At the same

time, however, Manhattan was only lightly settled as most of the WIC operations were upriver. The construction of the Fort

Amsterdam marked the official founding date of New York City. The hybrid community gathered on Manhattan until that moment

was a confused mix of private and public aspirations, of commerce and colonization, of employees and settlers. (Burrows &

Wallace 1999, p.26) The site of the fort is now the Alexander Hamilton U.S.Custom House. Todays Battery Park could date back

to the early battery formed by guns around the fort.

Over decades more colonists and settlements were exploited, especially in the course of the launch of the Patroonship plan in

16296. Kiliaen van Rensselear, one of the most prominent Amsterdam merchants, also a principle shareholder in WIC, became

a patroon of the largest and most lucrative trading area in New Netherland along the Hudson River out to Fort Orange

(Rensselaerswyck). New Amsterdam then started to function as a shipping hub for the traders from the other hemisphere, in themeantime a series of forts were established to defend the territory. ( see map, Forts against Swedes and Finns)The economic

activities brought in a wide variety of ethnic groups in this course of time including Jews and Africans, some of which as slaves.

3 The West Indische Compagnie in Dutch, abb. WIC.

4As a matter of fact not Dutch but rather Flemish Walloon families, French speaking.

5 Cryn Fredericks, an engineer from WIC chose Manhattans southern tip as the best location for a massive fortification whose masonry walls, bristling with cannon, would anchor the

West India Company operations throughout New Netherland. Fredericks had the site staked out before the end of the year. p. 21, Gotham :A history of New York City to 1898.

6This is the revised plan on the one released in 1628. It is less stringent in colonization requirements and contains more favorable terms than the primary one such as patroons have

broad jurisdictional rights over the colonists, they could also trade with New England and Virginia. Most essentially, they could participate the most lucrative fur and fishing trades

which were monopoly of the WIC Company.


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Figure1CastelloPlan(c.1660) withindicationofstreetsandblock(inred)accordingtoStokes'study,TheFortAmsterdamisonthetopleftcorner


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Figure2OverlaymapofredraftofCastelloPlan(1660) from1916andtheYahoomapofpresentday

The Dutch were the finest cartographers in Europe at the time they were exploiting the New World.The beginning of New

Amsterdam, or rather the beginning of New York City is to trace back from the detailed city map 7. (see overlay of

Castello Plan on current lower Manhattan map.)The Castello Plan is almost superimposed over the same streets of what we

recognize today. Every property with affiliated gardens was sketched. Private houses were aligned to both sides of the widest

street originated from Fort Amsterdam and ended where todays Wall Street is, occasionally interspersed with warehouses and

buildings for business use. There were no public buildings alongside though. In between buildings were those yards or orchards

belonging to the house owner on location. Only one cemetery was for public use. Public known differently as the Great Common

Road or Great Highway, Public Wagon Road or Broad Wagon Way, Heere Straat or Heere Wegh, Broadway began to take todays

shape from this period. What worth mentioning is, possibly the oldest written piece about Broadway comes from the journal of

settler David Pietersen de Vries. He depicted road over which the Indians from Wiechquaesgecks 8 passed daily in his journal,

from which, it is to believe that the very prototype of Broadway could be traced back in the ages long before Western civilization

came.

The English started to covet more and more as the province of New Netherland prospered. In 1664, their troops marched in

while there was minimal resistance from the Dutch. The Director-General Pieter Stuyvesant surrendered soon later. The City of

New Amsterdam and the entire colony were renamed New York in recognition of Jamess title as Duke of York. Fort Amsterdam

was renamed Fort James in honor of James II of England. And Fort Orange turned into Fort Albany. New York City remained the

premier British military stronghold in America during the Revolutionary War and was not liberated until the British evacuation in

1783.

After the take-over from the English, the Heere Straat was given a new name, a name that is as demonstrative as its distinctive

status Broadway.

7The plan is a city map of Lower Manhattan from 1660, created by Jacques Cortelyou, surveyor of New Amsterdam back then. Arround 1667, it was sold to Cosimo III de Medici and

almost 250 years later it was found in Villa di Castello near Florence in 1900. That is why it is called Castello Plan.

8 Or Wickquasgeck, the Manhattans were one of the Indian tribes in the neighborhood of trading-post (Fort), who occupied the island. There are a couple of other tribes were at the

same time occupying territories on the east side of Hudson River south of the Highlands( e.g. the Wickquasgeck, and west side of the river and the Jersey shore, and some the Long

Island.


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The city of New Amsterdam is now New York. The natural geographical shape enabled its growing northward. English institutions

were established as rapidly as possible and English names were given to every division of the territory in the province. The

English Municipal government (under mayor, aldermen and sheriff) was substituted for the earlier Dutch form (under schout,

burgomasters, and schepens ).9 Neither of the forms had been democratic as the magistracy was appointed by the provincial

governor but was not nominated from its own board as democratic system would suggest doing. In deference to the majoritysome of the old customs were retained. The inhabitants consisted of English and Dutch, and trade with the Indians was still

proceeding. The life of the period appeared thriving because simply anyone might furnish himself with land and live rent-free,

needed no fear of insufficient supply of pasture or fodder for their cattle. (Denton, 1670, p.24)

A general view of New York at this period written in perhaps around 1670 by John Ogilby, Esq.10:

It is placd upon the neck of the Island Manhatans, looking towards the Sea; encompassd with Hudsons River, which

is six Miles broad; the Town is compact and oval, with very fair Streets and several good Houses; the rest are built much

after the manner of Holland, to the number of about four hundred Houses, which in those parts are held

considerablethe Walls of Stone, lind with a thick Rampart of Earth; well accommodated with a Spring of fresh Water,

always furnishd with Arms and Ammunition, against Accidents.

The laying-out and paving of the public streets of city was carried out by country people with certain aids from men who were

master carpenters. They followed given instructions that directed them to lay out such streets as level and even as possible,

with a gutter through the middle of the street. Maintenance was done by the householders on each street and had an

agreement with cartmen about ditching the rubbish. In 1671, some inhabitants petitioned about a repair on the water-gate. The

construction of Corner Waal was then put on the agenda. A wharf was immediately erected, and it is to be considered as the

very beginning structure of Coenties Slip. Another significant decision of city planning made in the same year involved building

up a connection with another village New Harlem the , or Highroad to Boston as shown on the Iames Lyne

map. It passed up the modern Broadway to Park Row, from where up the Bowery to 14th Street, by Broadway to Madison

Square, and turned irregularly to the Harlem River at 130 th Street and 3rd Avenue.

The Dutch regained the colony for a short period of time in 1673 and quickly ceded it permanently to the English, that was in

the year of 1674. For a instantaneous moment of time, in honor of the Prince of Orange, New York was bearing a Dutch nameagain: New Orange, and Fort James became Fort Willem Hendrick. The town was again put in a state of defense. But soon by

the terms of treaty signed at Westminster in 1674, New Orange was restored to Great Britain. Various improvements took place

in the coming decades. Many facilities for public use were constructed; ruined houses or unimproved land was to be rearranged

to sell to those who would rebuild. According to Jasper Danckaerts11, Manhattan Island as he perceived had almost been

entirely taken up by private owners, the city on the west end was cleared for more than an hours distance, and along

Broadway over the valley, there were many habitations out of different ethnic groups.

In New Yorks history, the year of 1686 marks a substantial milestone. The Duke of York was brought to the throne of England

after his brothers death in 1685. The Dongan Charter made New York a royal instead of a proprietary province. Public

buildings12 were given to the government, the land between the swamp and the Fresh Water Kings Farm was reserved to the

King. The entire Manhattan Island was now entitled to New York City. During the coming several administrations, Broadway had

witnessed the expansion and development of public services (buildings), out of which, mostly meaningful, were theestablishment of English churches, schools and market-places. Some of them were built up in the side roads stretching from

Broadway. In 1718, the first Presbyterian Church in the city, standing along Broadway and at the north end of Wall Street, was

constructed in this age, and an affiliated cemetery came in the following year. Under the new charter granted by King James in

1731, something important happened to New Yorks topography. The territory north of present Chambers Street was now

divided out and therefore created a new ward: the Out Ward (it is not shown in the Bradfords Map). The jurisdictional line of city

was measured towards the low-water line on the neighboring shores. Public as well as private buildings were blooming and

some of them refined, at the same time a series of new streets were created. The land bordering the fort, to the north of

Broadway at the lower end, was leased to John Chamers, Peter Bayard and Peter Jay in order to enclose out a bowling-green

terrain as a beauty and ornament, while on the Commons, a work-house in the care of the church-wardens was issued.

9 This change was made in New York City by a proclamation of Governor Nicolls, issued June 12, 1665. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, p.16010 He was Master of His Majesties Revels in the Kingdom of Ireland.11 Author ofJournal of a Voyage to New York in 1679-1680.12 Including city hall, two market houses, the bridge into the dock, the wharves, the cemetery outside city gate and the ferry.


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Figure3AplanofcityofNewYorkfromanactualsurveybyIamesLyne,alsocalledTheBradfordMap,1730;plate27fromTheIconographyofManhattanIslandvol.1.The population of New York County and City in 1737 reached 10,664 with majority still lived below Wall Street. Wall Street as in

today, where the Dutch had built a protective palisade to defend their settlement defined the core and periphery areas of New

York at those days. Settlers of New Amsterdam gradually blended into new British colony. In the meantime numerous ethnic

groups kept emigrating here but there was scarcely intermarriage. The first organized fire department in 1738. There were hired

men and they regularly go to work with the fire engines. However, the tremendous fire disaster in some 38 years later as a test

result would have proven how well the organization operated.

Despite that England was at war with France, New York didnt stop her stepping forward, it continued growing northeastwards.

In the period of war around mid 18th century, several churches were built among which the most famous St. Georges Chapel in

the vicinity of the Commons, where Broadway intersects Park Row. Also, the first college in the province Kings College was

founded under a royal charter granted in 1754 in a piece of Kings Farm bordering the west side of Broadway and clamped by

the present Barclay street and Murray street , extending westwards till Hudson River. Kings College is the forerunner of

Columbia University13. The site of which apparently moved significantly to the west where the city had been growing.

13 One of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before American Revolution. After the revolutionary war, Kings College briefly became a state entity and renamed Columbia College in

1784. It became Columbia University in 1896.


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The British New York was going to be off the page of the citys history.

New York was still a small provincial town with approximately 12,000

inhabitants at most. Broadway, as the central infrastructure artery,

did not extend westwards much beyond the Commons (now City Hall

Park) until 1760, an extension to todays Thomas Street was made.

Exactly as the present Thomas Street defines, the developed part of

New York City below is just todays financial district. (see appendix

Map of Manhattan 2010) Broadway begins its journey uptown with a

conquering swagger, lined by corporate flagship buildings from late

19th and early 20th centuries that once dominated the world.

Broadway still poses itself out of a sense of grandeur. The street

opens to the horizon at where the harbor is. Broadway harkens at its

beginning to New Yorks beginnings. (Dunlap, 1990)

The American Revolutionary Period 1764 -1783

For a centurys time since the take-over, the policy and series of

navigation laws had regulated and controlled the imports of colonies

while interests were in their mother countys pocket. Englandsattention on its colonial administration was distracted by the virtue of

the fear of France in Europe and America.

The 1763 Treaty of Paris confirmed Englishs victory, from that

moment on, England was able to reorganize her whole policy, and

colonies would be embracing a new chapter of development. The

colony realized in increasing wealth and rapid growing population.

And as the strength grew, the union of colonies and ultimate

independence from their mother county England, as Montesquieu

foresaw, would be an irreversible historical trend because of the

constraining laws, which did no good for trade and navigation.

However, it was not an easy progress. Individual colonies werelacking unity as a result of mutual enmity and the inevitable physical

difficulty in communicating.

Being in need of joint forces to fight to survive the French and Indian

War, the colonies united for the first time. In 1765, two years after

the closure of the war, the British imposed Stamp Act aiming at

financing the cost of defending colonies. Colonies were outraged.

They protested to prevent the Act from being put into operation. An

inter-colonial committee of correspondence was appointed; The

tradesmen, mechanics and ordinary citizens gathered at the Fields

(the Commons called before; City Hall Park), marched down

Broadway to the fort. The result of the agitation was the repeal of the

Stamp Act in 1766. While the Stamp Act had been an internal tax,

the newly enacted Townshend Acts (1767) imposed external tax on

imports. By 1770, the colonies had been deviating from the

agreement not to import English goods. Only New York was truly

keeping the oath. Merchants were suffering and anxious to resume

the importation of all commodities except tea, the tax on which, was

obnoxious to them.

Situation became radical and tensed. New York had held no

revolutionary congress until 1775, when the public desire for a

continuation of local self-government was rising because they felt it

being threatened and moreover, New York possessed a peculiar

political position. In the meantime, the result of Long Island battle

Figure4MapofManhattanIslandin176667,plate41,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,Vol.1


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made General Washington decided to

evacuate from New York city, but how to

evacuate remained a question for a while.

Should it be burned or left for the British? At

that time, two general routes were connecting

the city from south to north, of which the first

The Boston Post Road and the second an

extension of Broadway to where the present

Union Square situates, where it was joined to

the Bloomingdale Road and ran all the way to

Kingsbridge ( now the 181st street ).

While the British had taken possession of

New York City, George Washington encamped

his army on the upper part of the island along

the Hudson, confronting the British General

Lord Howe. On September 21st 1776, a

suspicious fire caught up the city. It broke up

near Whitehall Slip, ranging up Broadway to

the City Hall, having destroyed literally

everything between Broadway and the

Hudson. Thanks to the open space at Barclay

Street the conflagration didnt spread further.

About one sixth of New York City was laid in

ashes. After a time beings turbulence, life

went on in New York, much as it had before.

The city remained in British hands, and for

the first time, comparatively, at free from

danger of attack.(Stokes, 1915, vol.1, p.328)

Services in the English churches were carried

out as before and charity school flourished

while on the other hand, the Presbyterian and

Dutch Reformed churches were occupied in

the form of prisons, hospitals, storehouses

and even riding schools; Comedies were

performed in little theatre; Cricket was

played on the parade ground; Commerce activities continued as usual; However, the poor were still suffering from their loss in

the fire.

In the twenty years of war, New York Citys physical expansion had been retarding substantially,

but the city didnt stop moving northward. The countryside of Bloemendael (Vale of flowers in

Dutch), as todays Upper West Side, was connected to a country highway, to which theBroadway was linked in nineteenth century, dictating the future route of Broadway. This highway

reached as far as the northern tip of Manhattan Island where Kings Bridge was located, down

the island as low as Sixteenth Street where todays Union Square stands.

The famous portrait of George Washington by John Trumbull, to which almost every observer

would be attracted, clearly accentuated on his confident gesture: with full uniform, standing

by a white horse, with his right arm upon the saddle. Rarely would one look into the background

a view of Broadway in ruins after the disastrous fire. But in the meantime, you could also see

those British ships and boats leaving the shore, with the last of the troops evacuating

Figure5MapofNewYorkCity,1730 1770,Gotham,p.206

Figure6Trumbull'sWashington

portrait, 1783


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1784 1811 The Adjustment and Reconstruction New York as the state and federal capital

As the English evacuated, those who were forced to leave returned to the city, however, at the very beginning of their coming-

back, found the city lay in a depression. These citizens were apparently appalled by how it looked like, by its devastation, by its

extent of the destruction. Stokes (1915) depicted:

Houses had been injured; churches used as riding halls, hospitals, barracks, and prisons; public buildings, as military

headquarters or as storehouses for ordnance and other supplies. Fences had been torn down, and trees cut for

firewood. Intrenchments and breastworks had been made along both river shores; forts crowned nearly every

considerable eminence on Manhattan Island, and barricades had been made at the intersections of important streets.

In addition to these natural consequences of war, the city had suffered peculiarly from the terrible conflagrations in

1776 and 1778, which had laid waste large sections.

At this moment, the biggest questions left from the war were regarding the properties, those which had formerly belonged to the

English government, became the property of the state of New York, where from year of 1785, the government of the United

States was centered.

Everything started to change, politically in the first place as well as social and economic aspects. The formation and adoption of

the Federal Constitution14 was struggling within nation; religious was undergoing a tough transition and reorganization; the first

group of financial institutions (banking and insurance) was founded; the schools that suffered from serious disorder during the

war resumed in exercises; Theaters, city hotels, pleasure gardens and entertainment spots (for instance circus) were

successively reopened or created; there appeared also museums and galleries. The city was every day growing into symmetry,

elegance and beauty15.

Broadway, again, witnessed how a city of public was facilitated step by step. The

New York Hospital was built in 1773, on the west of Broadway opposite Pearl Street

( now Thomas Street); in 1785, the Commons (or the Fields), bounded westerly in

front by the Broadway, was officially off the name list of state-owned property but

instead, a new expression with new name the Park; also, some structures

interesting were erected along the Broadway, one of which, the stone bridge over

the drain at Canal Street; Broadway also housed the notable galleries and

museums, of which the American Museum was located at a white marble building

at the south east corner of Broadway and Ann Street; City Hotels were built one

after another alongside Broadway, among which the new Tontine City Hotel, was

the first building in New York to have a slate roof.

The common council issued a new system of numbering buildings in 1794; also,

the streets that had been bearing a royal name such as King, Queen, Prince Streets,

were renamed. The enactment of new buildings laws regulated constructing

buildings with more effectual prevention of fires. 16 Broadway experienced a New

York style merger: beginning at Government House and ending at Vesey Street,

Great George Street was annexed to Broadway. Plantation along Broadway and

other grand streets were being set out in various parts of the town. Some seven

years later, Broadway met the Bowery lane at what is now the famous Union

Square.

The year of 1800 marked another milestone in the progress of New York Citys

building operations. The New City Hall, which is still at service today, was

commissioned accompanying a construction of more than fifty double or triple storey buildings. The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water

Pond) witnessed John Fitchs historic steamboat experiment, however in a very short period its destiny reached a questioning

moment. The public had been annoyed by its turning into a sink and sewer from a gainful resort. In the end, it took about ten

years in removing the pond entirely. A fatal yellow fever hit the city in 1805, and a tent for large emigration was later established

14 The Constitution was at last adopted on July 26 th 1788. New York was the 11th state to ratify it.15 The Daily Advertiser, Nov.23, 179016 Later this year after the enactment of the building laws, there was a fire again. Forty buildings on Wall Street and other adjacent streets were burnt into ashes.

Figure7PaintingoftwochurchesonBroadway:

TrinityChurchandSt.Paul'sChapel,byJohn

JosephHolland,1798


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in Greenwich Village where Broadway went through. Public eventually turned intolerable upon the long-continued uncertainty

and vacillation regarding the plans for city development. There were two times protests respectively in 1810 and 1811.

Figure8TheGoerckManginPlanof1799,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,Plate70

As it appeared at this moment, New Yorks Broadway was given a description by an English visitor John Lambert in 1807:


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New York has rapidly improved within the last twenty years; and land which then sold in that city for fifty dollars is now

worth 1500. The Broadway and Bowery Road are the two finest avenues in the city, The firstis upwards of two miles

in length, though the pavement does not extend above a mile and a quarter; the remainder of the road consists of

straggling houses, which are the commencement of new streets already planned outThe houses in the Broadway are

lofty and well built. They are constructed in the English style and differ but little from those of London at the west end of

the town; except that they are universally built of red brickthe Broadway is (further) lined with large commodious

shops of every descriptionThe City Hotel is the most extensive building in the BroadwayThere are three churches in

the Broadwaythe genteel lounge is in the Broadway, from eleven to three oclock, during which time it is as much

crowded as the Bond street of London

According to Lamberts account, the city of New York contained 33 worship venues, 31 benevolent organizations, countless

banks and insurance companies, 1 public library. The statistics from federal census showed a total population of 96,373 in

1809. Six to Seven hundred dwellings and stores were initiated since the first half of 1810. However the prosperity was

checked by the plight Europe was in at this moment. The commerce of the United States felt bad consequences of the conflicts

occurred in Europe. The situation didnt turn better until 1815, before and after.

The future development of the city was mainly dependent on the laying-out of the streets and avenues covering the upper part

of Manhattan Island proposed by the special commission appointed by the legislature in 1807. This laying-out regards the

.

Phelps Stokes (1915), with full affection, criticized on the plan which contained nothing but grids, the plan being appealed as

same to republican predilection for control and balance, the same to distrust of sinuous nature. The plan, with the merits of

simplicity and directness as Stokes put it, had no picturesqueness or any variety of elements. There was no talk of beauty,

sentiment and charm, but a striking order and a doubtful convenience.

1811, the birth of the gridiron layout, resembles a memorable moment in the transition of New York City from a little old town to

the marvelous modern metropolis.

17 Twelve avenues, each a hundred feet in width, would slice north, canal-like, from the edge of town, paralleling Manhattans central axis. Every two hundred feet, crossing these

avenues at right angles, were fifty-sixty-foot-wide streets (one of which, every half mile or so, w idened to one hundred feet. Gotham, p.420


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Figure9TheCommissioners'Planof1811,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,plate79

1812 1843 The War; Period of Invention, Prosperity and Progress


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[16]

The topographical character of New York City as we identify today, started to take shape as the universal approval of the

Commissioners Plan from the citizens finally came after a while of enragement and resistance from the public, although many

opposed to it all the time. They criticized severely on the neglect of the plan on defining the levels (elevations), which had been

necessary before the widths, the lengths of streets and avenues being created. However, undoubtedly, the Plan marks the leap

of the city development, in spite of the fact that the fundamental goal of the rectangular blocks plan was to make the land

easier to buy, sell and thence to improve real estate. About the portions that already had been built up, there was indeed not

much space and freedom for them to do anything. Broadway was proposed to be kept on a straight line above 14 th street as

presented in the Commissioners Plan. The portion of Broadway from 10 th to 21st street (Bloomingdale Road) had about six or

eight houses at this moment.

The United States had become one of the weightiest neutral nations engaged in commerce while Napoleon took control of the

continent of Europe from the Baltic to the Adriatic. But the coming war in which America itself was involved, had wounded New

Yorks commerce seriously due to stringent restrictions. In 1815, New York City opened its ports again to European trade,

everyone welcomed the peace. As the depression passed in around the end of the decade, the City embraced an astonishing

increase in population, and this was partly due to the fact that large amount of immigrants from England and Ireland chose New

York as their landing destination. But, the problem was, these new comers came without money. The mayor Cadwallader D.

Colden at that time complained that New York just seemed like a dumping-ground for Great Britain and the Continent to get rid

of those paupers and undesirable citizens. Institutions and agencies aiming at taking care of these questioned people18, the

sanitary condition of the town and other similar city conditions, were at demand.

New York had become the metropolis. Merchants from every corner of the country gathered to New York to transact their

business. In 1825, half thousand mercantile houses were established, including banks, insurance companies all kinds of

financial organs that were present at that moment of time. In association with the wealth growth, the physical growth of the city

was tremendous. So great was the demand for dwellings and which made the city keep developing northward. But it is

worthwhile of mentioning, that the city government actually was unable to adapt itself as quick as the conditions changed.

Citizens felt enforced to do their duties for things as small as cleaning of the streets, and the city peace needed too much effort

to preserve, such as the watchmen and constables.

Being at a rapid pace of growing, New York again suffered from fires and diseases19, and a period of hardship given by the

financial depression which was prevailing generally across the country. But, logically, the poor suffered more and these poverty

and mendicancy problems were to some extent largely caused by the flooding immigration.

18 Destitute persons, criminals, poors, sicks.19 Asiatic cholera in July 1832; Second epidemic of cholera in 1834; Fire in 1835. many remnants of New Amsterdam were destroyed.

Figure10oneofthefinestbuildingsinBroadway,1831.plate113b,

TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,vol.3


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[17]

Broadway, on the contrary, was representing the other side of

New York as being depicted the most spacious and

elegant 20 rather than crowded and hideous. The street

faade of Broadway generally consisted of very neat, small

brick or while marble. The city was well lighted by lamp,

Broadway and some other streets were lighted with gas.

Broadway was now playing a subtle role in distinguish the

class of residences as the section of the city west of Broadway

(from battery to Washington Square) deemed the finest

neighborhood; east section with a dense population inhabiting

small wooden(or brick) buildings; south districts were occupied

by commerce or finance related houses, for instance the Wall

Street. Extending from the Battery to 10th street, Broadway,

not only fashionable private residences, it contained as well

two miles of retail shops, principal hotels, several churches,

hospital and theatres. In the guide-book published in 1837 is

to learn that one-sixth of the Manhattan Island were already

occupied with houses, stores, and paved streets with the rest of the land filled with farms and gardens. Broadway alreadyextended to 23rd street, intersecting with the Fifth Avenue at where todays Madison Square situates.

There was a little interlude during the 1830s and 1840s for Broadway though as its reputation was stained by its evening

scenes where gangs, whores and drunks were glutting.

20 The New York Mirrior, January 6, 13, 1827.

Figure11ViewofBroadwayofNewYorkin1834,plate113,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,vol.3

Figure12

Map

ofNewYorkCity

in18251850,

Gotham,p474


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[18]

1842/4 1860 Industrial and educational development

Material prosperity was carrying New York forward. The city was

basically in a course of expansion in every dimension. However, the

administrative machinery became gradually incompatible with thechanging scale of the town and inadequate to the needs of citizens.

Civil facilities were in need of enlargement and improvements, and

growth in numbers; Public safety and education needed to be

guaranteed and satisfied. The city, though vastly increased in wealth

and population, had not yet reformed itself sufficiently towards the

needs but on the contrary, troubled itself with blundering mistakes

made by its own.

As results, a series of actions were taken within the city. An

abundance of pure or clean water was introduced in via the

construction of the Croton Aqueduct, fulfilling the city water supply;

Public education (free schools in this sense), as a very essentialpublic activity in a democratic community, was looked into and so it

was the same with religion related activities and institutions; the

municipal also took responsibilities in improving the police system to

reduce, as much as they can, the general dissatisfaction upon the old

Watch Department; some trade and commerce related facilities such

as the traffic and correspondence (post) conditions were also

considerably upgraded such as the set-up of the first express service

and the consolidation of New York Central Railroad, and

developments were even beyond the domestic region as New York

had become the unique importing hub for coasting trade in regard to

the whole country.

The city more or less followed the approach it had applied in the past

decennia. Large proportion of poor immigrants not only brought about

social disorder: numerous riots due to different religions, nationalities

and customs, it also generated political disadvantage, consequent

abuse and corruption until and during the Civil War. As depicted in

the awards-winning historical movie Gangs of New York(2001), years-

ranging wars between the recently arrived Irish Catholic immigrants

and the natives (comprising those born in the America) in the

notorious Five Points district in Lower Manhattan, were very much expressive on the antagonism among old and new citizens,

and therefore negatively-influential in the history of New York City. But, from another point of view, the influx of immigrants was

in the mean time doing the city good for the ampleness of labor desired for infrastructure building, and it somehow boomed the

amusement initially, in the sense that it had already appeared to have empowered with a talent of growing into a whole industry.

As to the physical course, the upper part of Manhattan Island, at this moment was about some scattered villages being

constantly enlarged, in an irregular way. Chelsea lay between 8th Avenue and the Hudson, ranging from 19th to 24th street. The

village of Bloomingdale (upper west side now, the section between 59 th and 87th street was long known by the locals as

Harsenville) was still occupied by dispersed country-seats. The most important public event was the laying out of in

this period. The project started with the acquisition of land and followed by a series of investigations and consultations.

Competition based design from Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux was chosen. The construction started in 1857, and it

took almost twenty years to complete. The population of Manhattan Island was about more than half a million in 1850 and by

1860, it accumulated to 814,000. This process reasonably resulted in another round of city expansion upward.

Broadway was not the only attraction to fashionable residences, in this time of period, Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue

somewhat had been rivaling with the sophisticatedly developed Broadway. But, according to historians like Stokes, the lack ofhomogeneousness among the citizens gave bad consequences to the unity in the form of physical features of the city. Anyhow,

Figure13TheDrippsMapof1850,plate138,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,vol.3


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regardless New York (and other cities) had been prospered in an (un) inviting way or not, the nation was advancing towards civil

war.

1861 1865 1876 1879 American Civil War, Period of political and social development

New Yorks progress during these years, as historian would call, was an unstable growth. First of all the Civil War during 1861 -

1865 had more or less procrastinated the physical development. Then came the rapid expansion, over-speculation, corruption

and eventually financial panic in 1873, which impaired the integrity of the city very much.

New York businessmen had been anxious to avoid break-ups with the South and any agitation that might precipitate financial

disaster. The city was so influential in any sense that it might conduct the situation. It tried to keep itself up to a level that could

be isolated from the real danger of attack during wartime, but it was not able to hold. New York was soon in a war state too. The

crowd was in a pleasant frame of mind for a while until the disturbances occurred and caused closure of many businesses

throughout the city: stores on Broadway were closed; railroads stopped running; gangs of ruffians made the streets hostile;

properties were sacked, destroyed or carried away. Not surprisingly to find, that the root cause of these riots remained the

antipathy between ethnics.

Although because of the war, city building was hindered and not as proceeding as it was in the past periods, still, it was growing,

at a relatively slower pace and for the first time, the population decreased. The revival followed the end of the Civil War in 1865.

It is not to deny that New York had not been internally injured due to its born position of being the principal centre of the vast

business of equipping troops and forwarding supplies during the war. As the magnitude of business enterprises expanded, the

far-reaching corruption came into being like symbiosis. This aroused reorganization in the administration of city departments,

and the process lasted until 1876. Some of the semi-public enterprises were brought into practice. The Metropolitan Museum of

Art and the American Museum of Natural History laid their first corner-stone respectively in the year of 1872 and 1874. Both of

the buildings were incorporated into the park system of the city so that the citys open spaces were considerably reused in an

acceptable. Transit facilities were improving greatly while the transportation within city was still very much insufficient. The

Grand Central Station opened in 1871 and links outward Manhattan Island were built up one after another. In the city, streets

are necessarily over-crowded; vehicles on surface railways were constantly overloaded with passengers. The undesirable

Figure14TheCentralParkproposalfrom1858,plate149a,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,vol.3


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[20]

problem emerged various attentions to the fact, consequently, the ideas of suspending railroads over streets or underground

railroads came into horizon.

In 1868, Broadway was chartered with a new form of being spacious and verdant, from 59 th to 155th street, as a public drive.

Broadway from 34th street to Central Park was broadened. It continued northerly from the south-west corner of the Park, where

todays Columbus Circle is, and then followed the line of the old Bloomingdale Road in general. From this moment on, the

Broadway Bloomingdale- Boulevard Kingsbridge Road was recorded the longest street in New York, it simply was namedBroadway. From Madison Square upwards, Broadway turned inhomogeneous in neighborhood quality, it became fragmented in

a sense. A simple scenery from south to north: houses with grace and grandeur stayed at the southern tip of the Island, serving

as financial agencies (now financial district); the portion north of city hall was occupied by wholesale (now Tribeca); then the

part of congestion of hotels, restaurants, gambling houses and theaters, basically all types of entertainment and life-enjoying

facilities reached as far as 30th street( now Soho, Greenwich Village, Gramercy and Garment District); and Ladies Mile followed.

It truly became, at that moment, a cosmopolitan road. A depiction from the Woods Illustrated Book to New York from1873:

The entire disregard of unity, the competition in costly and massive buildings, the diversity of material, as well as

adornment, combine to make it as a highway of commerce, the paragon of the world, and in every pillar, faade, and

cornice proclaim it the special result of the energy and enterprise of a free, thriving people. 21

The building type started to engage with a change that might indicate the start of the citys revolutionary growth in vertical.

Purchasing a land was in most of the cases unfavorable, and building higher upward was much cheaper and also very plausible

for the reason that elevator was already put in actual use. In 1865, a six storey mansion was regarded extraordinary. As the

Parisian Flats22 fashioned in New York, a New York residence style (seemingly lifestyle) was thus created. At the same time, New

Yorks young artists and architects were keen on European art, many of which went abroad to get educated and returned with a

full capture of the trend of old and new. They brought New York up to an unprecedented level of art and architecture.

21Woods Illustrated Hand-Book to New York, 1873, p.14722 A type of apartment house fashioned in Europe and then broadcast to America. It was soon proved to be so popular that many were erected. The popularity expressed how it meets

the users demand.


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[21]

Figure15 MapofTheCityofNewYorkin1879,plate154,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,vol.3


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[22]

The decade of 1880 to 1890 was of prosperity in general sense. Public attention was largely connected to finance and

protection. Criticism upon government remained although efforts had been made to improve local politics. New York had

learned lessons before. An important charter, the so-called Woodin Charter was vetoed in 1877, in the following years,

amendments were attached to it. In 1882, all laws that affecting public interests were revised and consolidated into one single

act the Consolidation Act. The year 1888 was engaged with exciting political occurrences for the city. As Harrison 23 waselected the President of United States, Tammany Hall24s holding on municipal affairs was enforced. Inspection of immigrants

and was established.

Figure16 TheColton'sNewMapoftheCityandCountyofNewYorkin1878,Plate155a,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,vol.3Disturbances in accordance with the construction of city railroads arose in around 1885. Because it was simply a gigantic

project and it would inevitably affect the interests of these property owners in connection with some franchise issues. In May of

1885, finally, the omnibuses serving on Broadway were withdrawn, the building of new lines started. As to the physical

appearance of the city, many parks were put on the plan; streets were repaved and many widened; New York Public Library wascommissioned on the site of old reservoir at where 5th Ave. and 42nd street intercrossing; sanitary administration was much

more advanced than before, actions were completed such as the wider medical supervision of schools, the inspection of

tenement houses and more thorough cleaning of the streets; public education system also kept improving. In the financial

aspect, however, publics confidence was in fact not as firm as it appeared to be due to the investigation conducted by the

Armstrong Committee25. In October, 1907, a group of banks was suddenly edging bankruptcy, on account of dishonesty and

speculative management.

On the first day of the year 1898, New York City officially transformed into Greater New York, marking the phenomenal

consolidation in citys history. New York was now with various municipalities and villages composing their suburbs. The territory

included within the enlarged city now consisted of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Richmond and the Bronx.

Notwithstanding, the great consolidation also means New York needed to confront the coming difficulties deriving from the

widely differing communities. A revised city charter of 1897 (was revised so entirely so rather a new instrument) kept on playingits force in the movement of municipal government in the last years of nineteenth century. During Mayor Laws administration,

facilities for rapid transit were significantly improved, as well as the water-borne commerce, like water supply. Comprehensive

plans of building subway took shape in Lows administration and plans for equipping the New York Central Railroad with

electricity were also under way.

One can hardly identify New York in 1909 from an 1876s vantage point. Yet this was totally an immature statement. But New

York was no longer suffering from gross political corruption. The management of citys affairs also had been embracing a real

and encouraging result. Through the concentration of power and responsibility, the more efficient mechanism of officials

electing system, civic consciousness and public opinion was awakening. New York retained its supremacy in commerce, trade

23 Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President of the United States, administration period: 1889-1893

24 Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 andincorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It was the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in controlling New York City politics and helping

immigrants, most notably the Irish, rise up in American politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. Wikipedia.org25 A committee that was appointed to look into the business and the business methods of life insurance companies.


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and finance with no wonder; New Yorks manufacturing industries came out on top too. The city was the leader of all other

American cities in printing and publishing, clothing and garment. Statistics showed one-tenth of the total manufactured products

of America came from New York in 1909; new waterways were created, accompanying with a privatization of the river-fronts;

Municipal transportation was incorporated with the use of electricity, virtually all methods of traction, surface lines as well as

elevated ones. The schools from and for every level and class developed in proportion to the growth of the city, so it is the same

with the number and scales of some other public organs such as the libraries and hospitals.

Since 1876, New Yorks architectural charm had been reaching a peak point. A new distributing reservoir was integrated to the

Central Park, enriching the benefit brought by the Croton Aqueduct. Many public buildings and amenities, for instance the

Metropolitan Opera House, the Madison Square Garden and the Carnegie Hall, as New Yorks finest edifices, were settled during

these decades. Private residential houses that embody grace and beauty were often found under construction along the finest

avenues. Tower Building, at No.50 Broadway, with completion in 1889, as the earliest example of skeleton construction,

seemingly had conveyed the most influential New York mark of era, which had been leading the architectural trend in New York

for many years ever since. 1901 marked another milestone in real estate and building activities in New York City as those

gigantic structures were erecting one after another dozens in a row, accordingly, enormous capital was incorporated. Loan and

trust companies were booming as the flow went. Business corporations all over the country chose New York, to establish their

headquarters in those newly erected new office buildings. Speculation in real estate became active, prices climbed upward as

the subway plan was fixed. Department stores took place firstly in New York, at Broadway. At this moment, Broadway from 14 th

to 26th street was already lighted with the electric arc light. In 1902, the completion of Flatiron Building at the junction of

Broadway, 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue, unveiled the arrival of an era of sky-scrapers. New York simply had been refreshing the

record of highest building in the world. The rising enthusiasm about heights seemed no limit, so well as the human ambitions.

It was perceived that New York used to construct itself out of

practical usefulness, regardless the beauty of effect. In 1898,

the Art Commission came into existence, being given

jurisdiction over all art related work belonging to city property.

Since then, the designs of all municipal buildings and

structures that encroaching upon the public domain would all

be sent to Art Commissions board of control. In 1907, one

century after the first meeting of City Planning Commission, a

report about a new city development plan was presented to

Mayor McClellan. Representatives from various associations

expressed in the report about their claim on a sustainable26

strategy for city development. Not only the laying-out of

buildings, streets and parks but also the details as seemingly

insignificant as the sidewalks and the house numbers and

electric light fixtures, even the manner of indicating streets. Of

all the suggestions, the most important item must be the one

about open spaces, city parks and supplementary beauty to it.

26 Although the term of Sustainable didnt populate at that time, but the idea conveyed behind was quite elaborating on the sustainable way of developing. They claimed that, asatisfactory plan for the citys development must necessarily anticipate the growth of the city for many years to come, and must be designed that all of its parts should be consistent,

so that improvements to be made in the future might be undertaken with reference to the accomplishment of a definite purpose, and not, as had too often been the case, without

reference to any general plan. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol.3,p.828

Figure17Broadwayviewin1905,plate159,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,vol.3


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[24]

Figure18Viewofcitylookingsouth,1909plate168,TheIconographyofManhattanIsland,vol.3


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[25]

The Last two decades of 19th Century were the beginning of a golden age for Broadway. The longest street in city unfolded a

descriptive panorama of New Yorks best flag-stores on Ladies Mile, most fabled hotels and notorious nightspots in the

Tenderloin, and finest theaters on the RialtoThe upper Manhattan was not isolated from the live rest of the island any more as

colleges had brought about live and young images. Many vital entertainment institutions moved northward. By the year 1895,

the theater district spanned one mile and a half on Broadway from 13th to 44th Street. The last great uptown push came with

the subway, which impacted Broadway so intensely. About 500 properties changed hands uptown in the meantime of the

subway train ran its duty for the first time in 1904, booming the real estate market exactly as those speculators from downtown

predicted and schemed for years since the proposal of laying down subway lines was out. (Dunlap, 1990)

The city of New York was standing at the gateway between the Old World and New, again. By the 1920s, the physical form and

pattern of New York, mainly the Manhattan Island, had already developed to a state that would be persisted through the next

half century.

When New York was founded at the dawn of the Modern Age, London and Paris were already one-hundred-and-fifty years old;

Rome and Beijing, two thousand; Jerusalem, four thousand. And yet somehow, in the century to come, such a tiny colony on the

edge of the world would rise to become the worlds greatest city on earth; the undisputed culture and economic capital of the

world and the supreme laboratory of modern life.

New York: A Documentary Film


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[26]

Standing in the middle of one of the avenues or mathematically named streets (is there a better way to symbolize the streets of

Manhattan?), all I had to do is to press the shutter despite that many of the street views I cannot be more familiar with. The

Hollander lineage in street faades in historical districts was revealing illusions that made me feel like being just home. The

other leading role in my photography is the spectacle of skyscrapers with an almost claustrophobic heaviness, outlining those

narrow concrete and steel canyons. Although critics usually sing a different tune with common public perception for the city,New York might be the only city that still deserves a compliment for its vertical concrete masculine picturesqueness. This has to

be perceived in conjunction with the grid, where the verticality and longtitudinality derived, aside from which, however, great

perspectives from East to West is sacrificed due to this primal topographic curse, as Henry James observed in his The American

Scene.

Claimed widely by historians, the major transformation of New York City from a poor copy of Victorian London at the tip of

Manhattan and Parisian modernity around Union and Madison Squares to a mature modernist city, had already accomplished

by 1920s.The Victorian values and morality had been applied in the context of conventional urban development whilst the

disruption of this form of order was also happening. Finally this evolved into a disorder with skyward and northward growth up

the island, with a speedily mobilizing streetscape. (Tallack, 2005). The late sixties cultural ferment is conceived of as truism

fact that the city was renewed. Personal choice became fetish, indicating a deeper identity: downtown or uptown, French or

Chinese, bohemian or yuppie. New York might have been, as the magazine (Times New York) once saw it, a promised land, atonce magical and distant from the rest of the country, but in the eighties it inhabited Reagans America. Suddenly, New York

seemed to be Wall Streets city. (Wolfe, 2008) Just give a brief glimpse on the Times Square, where Broadway intersects

Seventh Avenue and synchronizes with it for some seven blocks long, that theaters on Times Square were saved but

incorporated into high-rises. The Square area was changed radically in the sense of its physical scale. It had been transformed

from a heterogeneous mix of old theaters and rag-tag commercial structures into a chilling canyon of hard-edged skyscrapers.

Totally a dozen skyscrapers were built between 1965 and 1990 only in Times Square area.

Clay Felker, the founder of the New York Magazine regarded New York as an embedding of constant revolutionary tumult, with a

particular mind-set and interests. This statement is easily proved by simply looking at the visual change of the city. The

prestigious and award-winning book series compiled by Robert A.M. Stern and other architectural historians, strategically

allocated the modern development of New York Architecture and urbanism into five phases, within which the decades from

1960 to 2000 was imprinted as the period where our primitive impression upon the contemporary scenario is formulated.

This thesis is a simple sketch of Broadways fundamental development throughout 300 years, from Henry Hudsons discovery of

New York Bay until the formation of a definitive image of jungles of skyscrapers on Manhattan Island around 1920s. Broadway

and New York City then experienced the Great Depression and World War II, with modest development still. In line with the

continuous growing upward (in this sense northward and literally upward), contradictory impulse have run along Broadway such

as preservation, which is pleased to see. Broadway, then in the last decades before millennium, played a contradictory role in

implanting the contemporary elements into the city, in relation to the uptown urban renewal, to the slum and prostitution

clearance and easily any possible social course.

Broadways history is the history of the City of New York a kaleidoscope of democracy and capitalism, and what is behind this

kaleidoscope, is America. New York has long held an unrivalled position in the western hemisphere. As Stokes put it, what the

city s future is to be, remains for time to disclose; but surely, no one familiar with her past can doubt about her significance inregard to the progress of development of the world.

Gelukkig Land,God geef u vreede.

God geef u heyl, en voorspoed, troost, en rust.

God bann de tweist, en tweedracht van u Kust.

-Jacob Steendam, Noch vaster, Nieuw-Amsterdam, 1661


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[27]

NYPL New York Public Library Digital Gallery

The British Library Online Gallery

New York Landmarks Preservation CommissionThe Iconography of Manhattan Island, Phelps Stokes

*All the illustrations with higher resolution available. Please contact for details.

Burrows,E (Edwin) & Wallace, M(Mike), Gotham:A History of New York City to 1898, Oxford University Press, 1999

Dunlap, D (David).W, On Broadway A journey uptown over time, Rizzoli, New York, 1990

Fishman,S (Steve),Homans, J(John), Moss, A(Adam),(ed.), New York Stories, Random House, New York, 2008

Jacobs,J (Jean), The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Book, New York,1992

Lynch,K (Kevin), The Image of the City, the MIT press, Boston , 1960

Sennett,R (Richard), The fall of public man, W.W.Norton&Company, New York, 1992

Sennett, R (Richard), The Conscience of the Eye the design and social life of cities, W.W.Norton & Company, New York,1992

Stern, R (Robert) A.M., Mellins,T (Thomas) and Fishman,D (David), New York 1880:Architecture and Urbanism in the Gilded Age,

The Monacelli Press, New York, 1999

Stern,R (Robert) A.M., Gilmartin,G (Gregory) and Massengale,J (John), New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism

1890-1915, Rizzoli,New York, 1992

Stern,R(Robert) A.M., Massengale, J(John)M. and Gilmartin,G(Gregory), New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism between the

Two World Wars, Rizzoli, New York, 1987

Stern, R(Robert) A.M., Mellins,T(Thomas) and Fishman,D(David), New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism between the

Second World War and the Bicentennial.,New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995

Stern,R (Robert) A.M., Fishman,D(David) and Tilove, J(Jacob), New York 2000:Architecture and Urbanism Between the

Bicentennial and the Millennium,The Monacelli Press, New York, 2006

Tallack,D(Douglas), New York Sights Visualizing old and new New York, Berg Publishers, New York, 2005

Denton, D (Daniel), A Brief Description of New-York : Formerly called New-Netherlands, London, 1670, text online available at:

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=libraryscience

Danckaerts,J(Jasper),Journal of Jasper Danckaerts 1679-1680, Henry C. Murphy (transl.), text online available at :

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23258/23258-h/23258-h.htm

James, H(Henry), The American Scenetext online available at:

http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~hathaway/americanscene.html

Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York, Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1986; Dennis J.

Maika, Commerce and Community: Manhattan Merchants in the Seventeenth Century, Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University,

1995; John Franklin Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664, Scribner, New York, 1909


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[28]

Stokes,P (Phelps), The Iconography of Manhattan Island:1498-1909 - 1915, 6 volumes available at :

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/cul/texts/ldpd_5800727_002/index.html

Digital redraft of the Castello Plan of New Amsterdam in New Netherland in 1660 [beta], available at:

http://www.ekamper.net/gr-misc.htmA Guide to Former Street Names in Manhattan, available at: http://www.oldstreets.com

http://history-world.org/dutch_settlement.htm

http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/Netherlands.html

History of New York City (prehistory -1664); Castello Plan; New Amsterdam; Fort Amsterdam; Dutch settlement

New York: A Documentary Film, directed by Ric Burns, narrated by David Ogden Stiers, produced by Thirteen New York & WGBH

Boston.


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1. Analysis on Land use and building type in Castello Plan.2. The Maerschalck or Duyckinck Plan 1754, The Iconography of Manhattan Island ,plate 343. The Ratzer Map 1766, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, plate 414. Great Fire inn 17765. Street faade of Broadway a & b6. Map of Croton Water Aqueduct in 1842, Gotham, p.626.7. Perspective view of Manhattan island 18768. Perspective view of Manhattan Island from the Bronx 1909, plate 170.9. View of Times Square in 1988 and 1990, by David W. Dunlap10.Broadway map.11.Map of Manhattan 2010.

The 300 Years of Manhattan Broadway 1620s to 1920s

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