* The original Settlement of New Amsterdam had a wall built around it to protect the inhabitants from invaders from England. When the English won, they took down the wall on what is now modern-day Wall St.
* The Lower East Side didn't exist in 1790. It was actually the East River. The settlers used wooden logs to create a wall. Then behind the wall they filled it in with dirt and garbage, thus creating the Lower East Side as we know it. Sometimes they even used sunken ships - there's one under the South Street Seaport Museum!
* In the 1800s, 80 thousand people lived in Manhattan (which was only Lower Manhattan, actually)
* They wanted to expand the city, so they placed an imaginary grid over the rest of the island and used that to create the rest of NYC. Pre-grid there were wetlands, inlets, etc. The Harlem River flowed straight into what is now 10th Ave!
* When the expansion plan went into effect, 40% of the buildings in the "wilderness" were in the middle of what were planned to be streets, so the property owners had to move.
* There were no natural green areas and after the Erie Canal was built (the show explained this too & it truly was miraculous how it was built) trade and growth exploded, so leaders created Central Park, the biggest Fake in America.
* Central Park is 843 acres. It was created to promote civic health and to rival the great parks of Europe. It was created in the nastier part of Manhattan, full of marshes & squatters. They held a contest for it's design & the winning design wanted to mimic great landscape art of the time. The show compared paintings of the time to certain sections of the park and they are almost identical.
* There are no straight pathways in Central Park, they all meander.
* It took 3000 men over 10 years to create Central Park. They created hills, meadows, streams, waterfalls.
* They wanted to connect the East and West Sides without disturbing the beauty of the Park, so they built a road below park level to connect the two sides. To this day, you can rarely hear this traffic driving through the park.
* All lakes, ponds & streams in Central Park are man-made.
* All water bodies in Central Park are fed by the City Water Systems and thus can be drained or "turned off" (in the case of waterfalls) whenever necessary.
* In 1870, 50,000 people were commuting to Manhattan from Brooklyn. In 1883 the Brooklyn Bridge was built, the longest suspension bridge of it's day.
* 144,000 vehicles now cross the Brooklyn Bridge daily.
* The new city wanted Electricity. In the 1870s they already had Arc Lights on some streets, like Broadway, but they were too powerful for homes & businesses, so Thomas Edison marked a small district to be wired for electricity. He hadn't invented the light bulb yet. 18 months later, the 1st powerplant and underground cables were laid. 18 months after that, they tested this invention & it worked! Electricity was brought to the city.
* Some non-skyscraper buildings seem to be made of stone, but are actually cast iron facades over brick. You can put a magnet to them & it will stick!
posted by Chris O. @ 10/06/2004 07:32:00 AM
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