With 21st-century problems - environmental, technological, economic and social - now demanding aggressive and socially responsible leadership, the exhibition is a kind of object lesson. The grid was big government in action, a commercially minded boon to private development and, almost despite itself, a creative template. The show celebrates the anniversary of what remains not just a landmark in urban history but in many ways the defining feature of the city.Īfter all, before it could rise into the sky, Manhattan had to create the streets, avenues and blocks that support the skyscrapers. “The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011,” now at the Museum of the City of New York, unearths that 1879 picture of the Brennan Farm among other historic gems. Not so long ago, all things considered, the intersection of Broadway and 84th Street didn’t exist the area was farmland. On the modern street, apartment buildings tower above trucks and cars passing a busy corner where an AMC Loews multiplex faces an overpriced hamburger joint and a Coach store. In the old photograph, a lonely farmhouse sits on a rocky hill, shaded by tall trees.
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