Talk:Commissioners' Plan of 1811

message: The article was edited by 207.237.92.187 to state that the plan divided Manhattan into about "200 long, narrow blocks", instead of the 2000 that was previously stated.  I've changed it back.  The plan divides Manhattan into a grid of dimensions approximately 155 (streets) by 12 (avenues), and 155 times 12 is 1860, which is about 2000. Izzycat 01:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I'm calculating this from a series of 1879 Bromley plats on the David Rumsey Map Collection.
*11-10, 10-9, 9-8, 8-7, 7-6: 900 ft/0.17 mi (100 road, 800 block)
*6-5, 5-4, 4-3: 1020 ft/0.19 mi (100 road, 920 block)
*3-2: 710 ft/0.13 mi (100 road, 610 block)
*2-1: 750 ft/0.14 mi (100 road, 650 block)
*1-A: 703 ft/0.13 mi (90 road, 613 block)
*A-B: 736 ft/0.14 mi (70 road, 666 block)
*B-C, C-D: 746 ft/0.14 mi (70 road, 676 block)
--NE2 14:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Actual distance between avenues (mostly near 14th Street, if that matters)

message: The normal width is 60 feet.
   It should be pointed out here that the 60' number above includes the 15' sidewalks on
   each side. This would make the streets (as determined by the 'blacktop' surfacing)
   only 30'. The 100' avenue measurement is also affected, but is not as uniform, with
   the sidewalk widths varying. The numbers here (60' and 100') are from property line
   to property line.
   Frunobulax (talk) 17:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Wide streets

message: Eh?  Rock Center does not interrupt the grid plan; Times Square makes no major interruption, and Grand Central does.  Or am I misunderstanding?  Jim.henderson 03:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Major interrruptions

message: This article has significant issues and is poorly written. If anything it deserves a major rewrite. The following passages from just a brief overview of three sections are not backed up with citations, and include weseal words and puffery.
"In what would become the U.S., the gridiron dominates"
"Carson city may have the smallest"
"the powerful De Lancey family"
"Unfortunately, the land"
"The streets of Lower Manhattan were more "organic""
"relatively inexperienced"
and the absolute worst culprit that I came across
"And in the meantime, the Commissioners were, generally speaking, distracted by various other personal and political business; although they met – infrequently – there is no record of what they discussed, or if they were getting closer to a decision about what their plan would entail." 
This might constitute original research too. Llammakey (talk) 11:20, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Everything is sourced.  Everything. BMK (talk) 15:22, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Then cite it. Otherwise I assume its original research or your not attributing. This isn't a book, this isn't a research paper. Everything must be attributed to its source. Llammakey (talk) 15:59, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Significant issues 

message: I recently made a number of minor changes to this article, including adding a period at the end of a sentence (which is a style choice, I suppose) and converting bold headers into actual wikified headers per WP:PSEUDOHEAD. My edit was reverted. This is a basic accessibility issue. I am requesting that the reverting editor explain why a personal style choice trumps accessibility for subheadings in this article. Perhaps  could be used to achieve the desired effect? – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:18, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no accessibility issue.  The headings are simply bolded words, which can be read by any screen reader.  There is no need for the subheads under "References" to be hierarchical, cluttering up the TOC.  "TOC limit" would affect the entire article, which is undesireable. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:17, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accessibility fix per MOS reverted 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Commissioners' Plan of 1811. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070610165318/http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/nyc1811.htm to http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/nyc1811.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070610165318/http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/nyc1811.htm to http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/nyc1811.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 09:05, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There are nine references to "Burrows and Wallace" (). Seven refer to pages 419–422 (with ref name=gotham), one to page 187, and one to page 447. Are all seven references to pages 419–422 correct? I think there may be relevant page numbers missing when using ref name=gotham. Can whoever added those referneces please double check the relevant page numbers for those citations? Thanks, - PaulT+/C 15:30, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I added all those references, and they are all correct. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:53, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Since you don't know the sources, what grounds do you have for saying there are errors?  So you know the subject matter - you've never contributed to the article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:55, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in "gotham" and "manhmaps" citations? 

message: reverted my addition of the  template to this sentence I found vague and find unencyclopedic: “”. The edit summary says “sourced, sop not weasal” , but I’m not sure what that means either. Thoughts, please? —LLarson (said & done) 23:01, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It means "Sourced, so not weasel" - the "p" is a typo, as is the "a" in "weasel". The language of the statement is directly supported by the sources used, so they cannot be weasel words: Following the Federal Land Ordnance of 1785, the grid plan was effectively law for every American city. (Higgins, p.68) But even if the sentence wasn't directly supported by a citation, it does not qualify as WP:WEASEL: Weasel words are words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated.  There is nothing ambiguous or vague about the sentence By the time of the passage of the federal Land Ordinance of 1785, the grid plan was firmly established. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:52, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: "Weasel words"

message: The sentence Often the streets intended to intersect at right angles would not quite do so. was marked as "failed verification, but, in fact, one of the sources cited, Koeppel, on pages 25-26 says:As to the cross street, "Gerck, no doubt, intended the streets laid down by should be at right angles to those Roads," a later Common Lands surveyor notes, "but they were not so laid out on the ground." I have removed the "failed verification" tag. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:03, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: "Failed verification"

message: The following sentence was tagged as "awkward" for the reason that it had too many sub-clauses: 
::"The streets of lower Manhattan had, for the most part, developed organically as the colony of New Amsterdam – which became New York when the British took it over from the Dutch without firing a shot in 1664 – grew."  
I would agree to removing "without firing a shot" and doing some tweaking so that the sentence would read: 
::"The streets of lower Manhattan had, for the most part, developed organically as the colony of New Amsterdam – which became New York in 1664 when the British took it over – grew."
If this is agreeable to other editors, I will file an edit request for an admin to make the change. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:37, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: , Why not just make it two sentences? Wwwhatsup (talk) 01:30, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: What would those two sentences be? Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:39, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: "Awkward"

message: The streets should be 60 feet and the street centers a twentieth of a mile apart and the avenue centers should be about 3 times that as common avenues are various separations between the narrowest gap of the east side which is about 2 twentieths and a common enough non-Manhattan avenue gap which is 4 twentieths or very close. Avenues (except occasional extra wide ones like B'wayparts of B'way and Grand Concourse) are 100 feet wide I believe but check that too, at least a few feet of the blocks on the other side of the avenues should also be added to NY to get a complete picture of the block system. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:03, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: "Avenue blocks" - the distance between avenues on crosstown streets, change significantly from one part of Manhattan to another. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:18, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I know I live here. On the chart they should be 3 twentieths of a mile (792') avenue center-to-center as I measured 5th to Mad as a few feet over 500 on Google Satellite (jives with the 1020 5th to 4th at the top of this talk) and 5th to 6th as 1020 feet. The longest I could find so far in the outer boroughs is 1100 feet. So 3 twentieths is close to halfway between and thus most representative of the great variety. As for streets pixel ruler software says they're only c. 48 feet wide on the second image, they're supposed to be 60 feet, as that is the most common width in Midtown and much of the rest of Manhattan. If NY is wrong then Portland and Savannah needs to be checked too. And I would add Salt Lake City for variety as they have some weird-ass block dimensions - huge and square. Their streets are supposed to all be super-wide. And I think one of the Hispanophone street grids (Barcelona or Madrid?) is made of smaller cookie-cutter blocks than Portland, if I'm remembering right then maybe that city should replace it. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:47, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

text: Since the streets are supposed to be 1/20th of a mile this makes the sample block 890+ feet from building to building which is almost the size of 5th to 6th – the widest on Manhattan, it should show an average length instead. Maybe rounded off to exactly 3 short blocks as that is surely how long they'd be if they made a perfect grid instead of short-sightedly assuming the ship port would busier than 3rd to 6th forever so make 3rd to 6th 35-45% longer. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:01, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The chart is a schematic comparison of the block structure of three cities, not a map.  You'll note that it is not dimensioned. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:31, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: One that doesn't have 48 foot wide streets won't mislead people. In a map of Manhattan the blocks are so small that people don't expect the street widths to be to scale, in an image purporting to compare blocks with blocks so huge that it looks like a scale drawing some people will expect a scale drawing. Showing almost over a whole extra street width between the streets when it's supposed to be 3.4 or 3.33 is a big error. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:50, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but it is not a map. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:53, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It irritates STEMmy New Yorkers like how grammar errors irritate grammarians. I noticed the streets are too thin as soon as I saw it. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Stop looking at it as a map, and see it for what it intends to be, a schematic comparison between the relative structures of blocks in three American cities. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:23, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Would any harm come from the private land being 3.4 or 3.33 street widths instead of 4.5?  made minor error when I thought it was 4.3) Why should it be schematic when it could easily be to scale? Maybe 200/60'=3.33 is better anyway as lots are nominally 20 feet and most blocks are slightly under 0.05 miles to counter 14/23/34/42/57/72/79/86/96/106th etc Sts being wide. So that would make streets look 47 feet wide which is worse. Cars would be fucked if NYC lanes were 47/60ths the size of real life. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no need to change the graphic, as it is not a map and performs its function -- which is to give the reader a sense of how NYC's blocks differ from those in some other cities -- just fine.  Please WP:DROPTHESTICK. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Someone needs to check the dimensions on the block diagrams cause the streets are blatantly too narrow for New York