Commissioners' Plan of 1811 - The Plan

The Plan

The commissioners published their plan in March 1811 in the form of an eight-foot map with 12 main north-south avenues and numerous cross streets, with Broadway running at an angle through it. The goal was "a free and abundant circulation of air" to stave off disease. The right angles were also favored because "straight-sided and right-angled houses are the most cheap to build."

The plan called for a regular grid of streets and property lines without regard to the topography of the island itself. The plan called for sixteen numbered and lettered avenues running north and south roughly parallel to the shore of the Hudson River. Except in the north and south ends of the island, the avenues would begin with First Avenue on the east side and run through Twelfth Avenue in the west. In addition, in a neighborhood that would come to be known as the East Village, nicknamed Alphabet City for obvious reasons, there would be four additional lettered avenues running from Avenue A eastward to Avenue D.

There would also be 155 orthogonal cross streets. The location of the cross streets was fixed at the boundaries of 5-acre (20,000 m2) parcels into which the land had previously been divided. The basepoint for the cross streets was First Street: this was a short and inconspicuous street, which still exists, and originally ran from the intersection of Avenue B and Houston Street to the intersection of the Bowery and Bleecker Street. Peretz Square, a small triangular sliver park where Houston Street, First Street and First Avenue meet marks the spot where the grid takes hold.

Each avenue was to be one hundred feet (30 m) wide. The avenues in the center of the island were to be separated by 922 feet (281 m), and the avenues along the waterfront were to be slightly closer. The operating theory was that street frontage near the piers would be more valuable than the landlocked interior, the waterfront being the location of commerce and industry of the time, and so it would be to everyone's benefit to place avenues closer together at the island's edges.

The numbered streets running east-west are 60 feet (18 m) wide, with about 200 feet (61 m) between each pair of streets, resulting in a grid of approximately 2,000 long, narrow blocks. With each combined street and block adding up to about 260 feet (79 m), there are almost exactly 20 blocks per mile. Fifteen crosstown streets were designated as 100 feet (30 m) wide: 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, 72nd, 79th, 86th, 96th, 106th, 116th, 125th, 135th, 145th and 155th Streets.

The width of the crosstown blocks was irregular. The distance between First and Second Avenues was 650 feet, but 610 feet was the gap between Second and Third Avenues, while the blocks between Third and Sixth Avenues were 920 feet, and 800 feet from Sixth to 12th. Lexington and Madison Avenues were added after the original plan.

Existing buildings could remain in place, and if removal was necessary the owners would receive compensation.