Category: Uncategorized (Page 7 of 8)

During the years of the 1800s to 1900s, New York became the center of attraction for immigrants to move in, rapidly increasing the population creating housing a huge problem. Hosing for immigrants was not easy they have to live in extremely difficult living conditions, overcrowding in houses, not enough restrooms and highly rents generates a big crisis for them.

With the arrived of immigrants, land and housing started to increase rapidly where Landowners and wealthy people became aware of it and began to build creating more houses not caring about the safety and health of people but themselves. Their tenement homes provided little light, air and many lacked indoor plumbing creating diseases such as tuberculosis.  This disease becomes a huge problem during 1905 and 1915 that it came to symbolize the concern of public living safety creating Acts that make housing more efficient in terms of space, safety, and sanitation.

In 1899 new designs of buildings were created solving the problem of space, light, and overcrowding in buildings. These new designs promote air and light to be more sustainable in buildings not creating pollution or illness. Also, with these new design use of lots were more efficient with high buildings creating more rooms for people. Yet it doesn’t solve all the problems, beautiful and safety buildings were more expensive and people of lower-income cannot afford it.

Overpopulation, sanitation, expensive rents, and sustainable buildings are still some of the main factors of the current issues of housing in New York. Nowadays housing is very expensive with a very small space to live. Even though New York is one of the world’s largest city, space is very important when it comes to housing, projects and design are still in progress to create a better place where people can live comfortable without affecting the environment and at the same time at a lower cost.

Manhattan and Brooklyn have architecturally significant buildings in a wide range of styles showing different historical and cultural times. The Architecture and streetscape of Manhattan and Brooklyn had a major influence by the Dutch and British style during the beginning of the urban development, even though both Manhattan and Brooklyn differ in terms of forms, details and structure.

Brooklyn Heights neighborhood is largely composed of blocks of picturesque rowhouses and a few mansions. A great range of architectural styles is represented in the buildings, such as Greek revival. Some houses were constructed of brick and wood but the dominant building material was brownstone.  A typical brownstone house is three or four stories tall with the main floor above the street level and reached by the stairs referred to as a stoop a word derived from Dutch. The basement is typically a half down from the street, the rear of the lot would be a private garden. Also, Brooklyn Heights has very few high-rise buildings with three, four and five-story buildings creating a neighborly atmosphere where Manhattan has a different structure and design of the building environment.

On the other hand, Manhattan has been a powerful city from the beginning and has been shaped by big tall buildings and big structures using solid stone and brick. Manhattan’s large residential areas are mostly defined by elegant brownstones rowhouses, townhouses, and tenements that were built during the 1800s defining the city growth and development. Stone buildings in Manhattan have a unique form where the first floors are taller than the rest of the other floors with a variety of textures, designs, and shapes. Also, the windows are particularly similar to the floor structure for example windows in the first floor are very different than the upper floors, it seems to follows a pattern where the first and upper floors are divided in two forms even thought is just one building with a different form of design.

In the end, we can see the difference between Brooklyn and Manhattan architecture and streetscape by looking at the structures and forms of the buildings where Manhattan has the tallest elegant buildings and commercial structure while Brooklyn had a lower scale building with a more neighborly atmosphere. In terms of streetscape Manhattan have a more organized and wide space while Brooklyn lacks organization and space.

Manhattan and Brooklyn both had a different trajectory of growth and development but Brooklyn didn’t fully begin to develop in a faster way. Urban development in Manhattan was much more planned in compare to Brooklyn’s development. Manhattan’s location and land help a lot with its fast development over Brooklyn.

New York development started with the Dutch settles in 1664 who began their urbanization in lower Manhattan known as New Amsterdam. At this time pathways and roads were created unorganized and unplanned until 1810. After the war in 1797 when the city went into a huge expansion the first grid was created. The city recovered quickly from the war, and by this time it was one of the nation’s most important ports. As the city grew in 1811 the first grid was stablished of streets and avenues for the undeveloped parts of Manhattan. This grid helped Manhattan’s development by creating organized streets and use of lots to be more efficient.

Manhattan had a better land to grow faster than Brooklyn. The city already was one of the most important ports, the cotton economy played a particular role in its development. Southern planters sent their crop to the east river docks, where it was shipped to the English industries cities. Then textile manufacturers shipped their finished goods back to New York.  The Erie Canal was completed in 1825, New York City was the trading capital of the nation and by 1837 the construction on the Croton Aqueduct provided clean water for the city’s growing population. With all these new implementations growth was inimitable.

While Manhattan was developing Brooklyn was already behind its development, without a grid plan and small port it was very difficult to grow fast.  Its location and land didn’t help, with an unstable and unorganized land, developing and growth was very difficult. But with the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn development start to grow fast.

Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. “Map of the lands included in the Central Park, from a topographical survey, June 17th, 1856; [Also:] Plan for the improvement of the Central Park, adopted by the Commissioners, June 3rd, 1856.” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 23, 2019. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/6850fc74-5e61-8806-e040-e00a18067a2c

Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. “Map of the Central Park” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 23, 2019. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/4ee14540-3569-0134-fa82-00505686a51c

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Martel’s New York Central Park.” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 23, 2019. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-7d4c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “View of Central Park. New York.” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 23, 2019. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-7d81-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. “Parks – Central Park – looking northwest from Bar Bizch Plaza Hotel” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 23, 2019. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-c3a3-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

After the Manhattan urban development, the immigration impacted the population and economic in New York City. These changes brought consequences that led to the housing crisis problems like sanitation, plumbing, fire and diseases. The main priority of housing owner back in the 1800s was to figure out how could they fit more and more immigrants into their housing buildings in order to gain more monetary benefits. However, the tenants didn’t benefit from this because they were living uncomfortable and getting sick.

The bad use of the housing lots created issues for the tenants living in it. In 1899 the outlets maps show how inadequate were buildings organized in several places in New York City. At Halmiton street the housing buildings were badly arranged and put very close together because the landlords wanted to use all the land spaces. This brought too many problems and poorly decisions were taking which kept affecting the housing projects for many years.

The tenants were going through a tough situation since there were sanitation problems that lead to diseases issues within the housing buildings. There was a myriad of people with the contagious diseases called tuberculosis because of the lack of space and air flowing in these housing apartments since, some rooms were inappropriately design without windows. Indeed, the city wasn’t regulating air and sun during the urban development.

In conclusion the lack of organization and considerations during the housing project development started  many consistent issues which within the time were trying to be solved because of the tenement laws that were passed.

To the common man, the fact that the architecture across the Hudson River is so vast and different may come as a surprise. Manhattan; a land overbuilt with factories and skyscrapers, known for its congested amount of people, versus Brooklyn; a rather quiet land, with more residential buildings, and only recently beginning to build up to towers. The reason for this is quite simple; the topography. Manhattan’s shoreline is perfect for trade ships, traveling not only between the boroughs, but the states and even over the Atlantic – hence the large amount of manufacturing, and lack of residential. Brooklyn’s terrain is higher from the water level, filled with hills and marshes, which isn’t the best option for traveling boats, and lugging items off and onto them. Even so, the two worked together in synchrony to create the Boroughs we know today.

Brooklyn’s land at first was deemed as cheap and were auctioned, even gifted to people as grants. It served as fruitful land, perfect for farming and quiet quaint living. The high hills overlooked the rapid development across the river, with the advantage of no noise or other pollution in their vicinity. As more people saw the benefits of Brooklyn, the land itself became very expensive, and the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights began to develop. Wealthy families of high regard names began to move in, and the area from that point on became quite luxurious and expensive to reside in. Land was bought in bulk to build housing for those who didn’t want to start from scratch, creating entire streets with the same architecture. Brown stone homes, brick houses and huge attention to detail, whether it was laying brick in a specific pattern of the Federal homes, or the addition of Greek architecture to their front doors.

In contrast, Manhattan’s buildings were quite obviously meant for a completely different use. Standing on the edge of the water, brick and stone buildings stood with huge entrances and windows for cargo. Thick trusses stick out from the unfinished ceilings, combined with cast iron and tough materials resistant to the salt spray coming from the water’s edge.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1O1Ml5ethivp-CsA5GFudNsyolhztpDH1?usp=sharing

Compare Early New York/Brooklyn Architecture and Streetscape

Even though Manhattan and Brooklyn have similar features both where developed in a different pace and has different topography and spaces organization. Both boroughs look like two different towns with similar functions. The lifestyle in the early centuries impacted the economic, societies, population and government over the years.

Manhattan and Brooklyn were best known as rural areas abounded of farms, agriculture, flora and fauna before the British bought land from the Dutch. If we talk about Borough Hall Brooklyn which was mostly surrounded by farms that were sold to use the territory to be renovated to be used for more accessible and productive spaces.  The Lenape land called the New Amsterdam during the 1800s environment was mostly houses and small business places.

The architecture in Brooklyn is full of historical background with diverse architectural styles from Greek and Rome like neoclassic and Romanesque. In willow street, there’s many different brownstones buildings with aesthetical front door design and window fancy lintel. In addition, we observed three brownstones houses one of them was the 157 willow street in Brooklyn, these buildings seems to be own by the same owner, the doors have ionic columns. In Manhattan the building 170 john street trading post exterior design was very simple, the front door columns capital was more modernistic not as the traditional columns.

The materials used in Brooklyn brownstone houses during the 18^th and 19th centuries was mostly predominant in this borough was wood within the years brick been used to replace wood since there was a big amount of fires happening because of the village was made out of the wood material.  Nowadays stucco its used  to imitate brick and to be used in façade. Some old buildings in Wall Street Manhattan Façade were made out of granite  not stucco or brick but other expensive materials to show the transition between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F3MNN1r2GY4kO6-4Uz5_2opdcSeguKUD

Manahatta began in the history books as land roamed by the Natives of the Americas, and its indigenous animal species. It became transformed by the Dutch who came to colonize the land in order to find an easier path into Asia, laying claim to New Amsterdam. Fugitives of the United Kingdom later traveled to this land, with their ideas of owning land, and making money, and resulting in the pollution of sacred indigenous land. Manahatta became Manhattan; losing its original name and transforming into the new center of trade, manufacturing and commerce. As more people traveled into the new-found land, the surrounding land was slowly taken over as well. Brooklyn became another trading post, but mostly being used as farmland by the Dutch, therefore founding New Utrecht, and the surrounding neighborhoods. The difference between the two (now Boroughs) lie in their layout; Manhattan became organized according to a grid, a grid that was only later implemented into Brooklyn once the need for farming had been pushed out by the necessity of housing and land. Once looking at the grid of Manhattan, urban planners came to realize that open space is essential to city living; this created newer open spaces in the lots on the map, but it initiated the creation of Central Park itself. In a way, I would describe Brooklyn’s layout as an effect to the grid being created in Manhattan. As the designers of Central park were tasked with designing Central park, Brooklyn had realized that they would most likely require one as well, seeing as residential became more and more demanded. Looking at the map of Brooklyn and seeing the shape of Prospect Park adds to the idea that Brooklyn wasn’t exactly created as a grid just like Manhattan; the blocks and lots were just an afterthought.