Topography and Hydrology of New York
New York City became the most populated city in the United States in the 1820 according to Ira Rosenwaike in her book The Population History of New York. 34 years after the creation of the country, New York City surpassed Philadelphia by more than 5,000 inhabitants (16). The population has been rising every decade and has stayed on top ever since. A plan had to be put in place to adapt the city’s raising population. In 1811, the gridiron plan was established by the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811 for the island of Manhattan in order to develop the city in an organized and easy manner. Civil engineer, Egbert L. Vielé, shows how disruptive this plan was to the natural topography of the land in his map and essay, Topography and Hydrology of New York. The map shows the original topography of the island and the new streets that were built over it. The gridiron plan was remarkable, it created a logical way to divide the land with uniform spaces, but it disregarded the topography completely which brought many problems to the city.
(Vielé’s Topographical Map of New York, 1865)
Vielé’s map shows a lot of information regarding the island of Manhattan. The information it displays can be divided into two parts, the topography and the man-made aspects of the city. Instead of making two maps, Vielé created one map with the two maps layered on top of each other. This is done to compare the two in a much easier way and show how the two could affect each other.
In the topography layer we can see the hills and streams that once were in the land before the gridiron plan. Vielé also shows the type of lands the island is built upon. He shows what parts of Manhattan were marsh lands, meadow land and what parts were man-made lands like the lands in the coasts. By seeing the map, we notice that the whole of Manhattan was covered with streams and wet lands. We can also observe hills but there is no indication of their height on the map. Vielé states in his essay, “the topography of the island of New York varies for 5 to 150 feet above high-water mark” (6). Even though these features are found all around the island, there is definitely more hills and streams uptown starting on district XX on the map rather than downtown and especially on the west side.
The man-made part of the map shows the streets of lower Manhattan, with its streets parallel to the waterfronts, and the new streets that were part of the Commissioner’s Plan to create a gridiron system. The difference between lower and upper Manhattan is very apparent when looking at the streets. Lower Manhattan, which was developed earlier, has independent grids that follow the exact paths of the waterfronts rather than having a perfectly organized grid like upper Manhattan. Vielé also represents with thick lines, between streets, the sewers. The main thing you realize when looking at the sewers is that they are not distributed equally. Downtown Manhattan has significantly more sewers than the upper districts. This might be a reason why districts like Harlem were developed far later than other districts.
Vielé’s main focus in the map and essay are the sewers and the streams because he believes something has to be done with the current plan. He states that, “the map will serve to convey some idea of the extend of the evil to which the city is exposed, if the subject of proper drainage continues to be disregarded” (11). Vielé expresses the dangers of having “stagnant water” in the city and all the diseases it could bring (9). In the map, he displays all the streams that used to be in this land to show that these natural streams now have no way to reach the river, so the water was no way to escape. In his essay, Vielé gives a few examples of the streams that are now interrupted because of the man-made development and creating “the most noxious odors [… and] swampy soil”. He also mentions that, “[he] knows that is generally supposed that when the city is entirely build upon, all the water will disappear” but at the time, in 1865, that was “not the case” (10). We know that today, the problem is almost completely fixed as there is no stationary waters in Manhattan but 150 years ago it a was a massive problem. Vielé also gives specific example of other cities in Europe that were affected by the plague and fever to showcase the dangers that New Yorkers are in. These diseases in Europe could spread extremely fast and efficiently because of the cities’ lack of capable sewers and pluming. His goal in this essay was to inform the public that changes were needed to save the city.
Vielé talks about two main changes he believes the city needs. The first was to widen the streets in the lower part of the island. As we can see from the map, lower Manhattan has much narrower streets that the upper parts. Vielé believes that wide streets “are more healthy” and “more useful and valuable for business purpose” (12). Narrow streets are a lot more vulnerable to diseases and fires, so he believes this is an urgent change. The second change he wants to see in the city is an improvement on the “free flow of water along the channels of the original drainage stream” (12). The drainage in the upper parts of the city is far worse than the lower part as we can tell from the map. The upper part has a greater number of streams and fewer sewers, so it is causing some real problems in that area. Vielé believes that this should be done by “building more substantial culverts beneath the streets, and by the constriction of permanent drains” (12). The map that Vielé drew is perfect to see why the changes he addresses in his essay are necessary. The map illustrates the contrast of the roads with the original topography to demonstrate how such a disruptive plan affects the city.
When comparing the topography and the roads, a great deal can be learnt from the island of Manhattan. The map shows why areas like Harlem developed a lot later than the rest; Upper Manhattan had a lot more wet land, streams and hills which made development challenging. With less public goods like sewers and harsher terrains, it made sense why developers were hesitant on investing there. It also demonstrates why the Heights took even longer to develop as they were not even part of original gridiron plan. The plan ended with 155th street and Manhattan today ends at 220th street. Furthermore, the fact that the map shows that in 1856 there had already been more development on man-made lands, could indicate that the lands were so difficult to develop that investors preferred to create new lands around the coasts instead of developing the existing lands in the north.
By looking at this map and by just knowing what Manhattan looks like today we can realize the impact humans have on the land which cities are built upon. New York City is now seen as this almost entirely flat land with no distinct topographical features but that was not the case in the past. New York used to be totally different a few hundred years ago. We have destroyed all the natural landscape to create one of the world’s most important cities but, was it worth it? Should we destroy the original topography of a land to create logical and efficient cities or should we adapt to the landscape and use it as a guide to build the city? I believe that New York’s gridiron is one of the best examples of city planning but maybe we should find a balance on being disruptive and adapting to nature for our future cities.
Works Cited
Rosenwaike, Ira. Population History of New York City. First ed., Syracuse Univ. Press, 1972.
Vielé, Egbert L. Topography and Hydrology of New York. Robert Craighead, Printer, 1865.