MANHATTAN UNLOCKED

Architecture, geography and transit together explain the extraordinarily rich, inordinately complex history of New York City on the Island of Manhattan

  ♦  ♦  ♦       ♦  ♦  ♦       ♦  ♦  ♦ 

The inverse of archeological digs, cities are anthropological builds, and New York is an extraordinary one by any measure. From City Hall to Central Park New York is a Frankenstein’s Monster of history and architecture. How do the wildly different  architectural profiles of Manhattan’s neighborhoods make sense? Is there a logic to the city’s development?

Beginning soon after the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, but especially after Croton Water in 1842, three successive waves of built environment overran and over-wrote one another for the 4 miles between City Hall and Central Park, each larger than the one before. They were the modalities of life captured by the meme: live, work and play, but the order they moved uptown was: live, play and work. Residential neighborhoods of homes, churches, clubs and schools (live), were overrun by commercial cultures of shops and theaters (play), which in turn were overrun by commercial businesses in the form of manufacturing, industry and trade (work).

A 3-dimensioanl cast iron and steel frame matrix rose from the 2-dimensional grid in increasing orders of density. Through this matrix, an American culture evolved; the home became the apartment building (live), the shop and the store became the department store (play), and the countinghouse became the office tower (work). 

 This is only the beginning to understanding the extraordinarily rich, inordinately complex history of New York City on the Island of Manhattan.

 Welcome to Manhattan Unlocked