Just a stroll down Second Avenue
Like many American cities planned in the 19th century, central Birmingham is designed around a rectangular, regular grid system of wide streets and avenues. The most famous example of how an orthogonal grid shaped the future of a city is found in Manhattan, where John Randel presented his map of the island (at that point mainly covered with farms and cow paths) in 1811.
This map, audacious at the time for imagining a pastoral island completely gridded and developed, is the subject of a great article and multimedia piece in the Times. The above engraving shows how the new streets cut across existing farmland and house lots, often leaving structures in a precarious structural state. New York being New York, these older houses were torn down quickly for new development to accommodate a rapidly growing city.
Happy 200th birthday, NYC grid!
[Pic courtesy New York Times]
Bhamarchitect's Blog 
Here’s the Birmingham equivalent of that picture:
http://www.bhamwiki.com/w/William_Nabers_shop
Wow–great story. Thanks for sharing that.
Jeremy C. Erdreich, AIA, LEED AP Erdreich Architecture, PC 2332 Second Avenue North Birmingham, AL 35203 tel 205.322.1914 fax 205.322.1925 http://www.erdreicharchitecture.com
I had read the piece with relish. Interesting to learn they laid out many more east-west streets than north-south avenues because they expected people to gravitate to the waterfronts. Only now is NYC re-claiming them as linear open space.
I’d never heard that fact myself–what a great one. And also great that the space on the east and west edges is finally being reclaimed.
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