broadway, upper west side.
I love imagining a time when manhattan was farmland. mansions set on hills and little windy roads up and down the island.
out of this wide expanse, somebody thought it was a good idea to start some kind of a grid system. with tall skinny buildings, instead of wide sprawling buildings. there was a sense of possibility and things to come that i just cannot fathom.
how did they know that we would need so much space? and why did they go vertical?
here is an image of that time. up for auction at sotheby’s for major dough.
the image predates the grid, so the exact location is unknown, but a notation on the back identifies it as on “the main road … called a continuation of Broadway.”
awesome.
[for more, check npr and evan sklar]
