File:The Great north side, or, Borough of the Bronx, New York (1897) (14578385859).jpg

Identifier: greatnorthsideor00durs (find matches)
Title: The Great north side, or, Borough of the Bronx, New York
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Durst, Seymour B., 1913-, former owner. NNC North Side Board of Trade (Bronx, New York, N.Y.)
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Knickerbocker Press
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: The Durst Organization

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what the Commissioner of Street Improvements mustdo for the North Side—plan its street system—made theirreport, they stated, that howTever much stars, circles, crescents,and the like might embellish a plan, square-sided houseswTere the cheapest to build, and the most convenient to livein, hence the street system should consist of rectangularblocks. So they laid down a T-square and triangle, and drewparallelograms across the island about 150 times, and thenstopped, startled at their own audacity in planning streets sofar north into the wilderness. The result we have in thegridiron system of monotonous streets which has little torecommend it except perhaps convenience to strangers withinour gates. Thus it was that Manhattan Island was laid out onthe parallelogram plan with narrow and deep lots, as a conse-quence of which buildings of any depth must, of necessity,have dark and ill-ventilated interior rooms : the depth of thelot which forms the unit of measurement being four times its
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The Great North Side. 117 width. This same plan has been carried out to some extenton the North Side. Fortunately, however, a large portion ofthe North Side is topographically incapable of being laid outon the gridiron plan, its hills and valleys rendering thisimpracticable, because either the grades would be too steep,or else the hills would have to be cut down and the valleysfilled in so much as to render the adjacent property valuelessfor building purposes. Where this is the case picturesque,winding roads have been laid out, which are very apt to belined with attractive cottages, the lots being irregular in shape,and ill-adapted to tenement-house building. This is espec-ially the case along the western and northwestern hills of theNoith Side. There are many attractive residence streets and avenueson the North Side, only a few of which can be here alludedto. Mott Avenue, a very pretty thoroughfare lined with fineold trees which arch over the roadway, starts in the businesssection of

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