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One thing that made Manhattan into what it is, aside from all the history people have mentioned and the city's harbor, is not the layout, but the bedrock. It is called Manhattan schist, its not too far under the surface, and early on it provided the stability for the island's skyscrapers--something that alllowed the enormous density of the place. (And yes, I know the skyscraper was originally a Chicago thing.) Nowadays with new construction techniques I don't believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) building on bedrock is quite as essential as it was 100 years ago. But for a rapidly growing city a century ago, I think geology contributed far more to what Manhattan is now than topography.
One thing that made Manhattan into what it is, aside from all the history people have mentioned and the city's harbor, is not the layout, but the bedrock. It is called Manhattan schist, its not too far under the surface, and early on it provided the stability for the island's skyscrapers--something that alllowed the enormous density of the place. (And yes, I know the skyscraper was originally a Chicago thing.) Nowadays with new construction techniques I don't believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) building on bedrock is quite as essential as it was 100 years ago. But for a rapidly growing city a century ago, I think geology contributed far more to what Manhattan is now than topography.
that's the usual (although I am not sure completely correct) notion that would explain the wide gap between Lower Manhattan and Midtown, two areas rich in Manhattan schist...while the areas in-between are not.
not trying to kick a dead horse, but as the OP, I still think we have skirted the premise on which I posed my question.
I will happily completely concede (although it can't be a concession since I believed it already) that New York was destined to be the nation's most important city. When an old colonial strip of land stretching from Maine to Georgia expanded as a new nation to the lands to the west, New York City alone through the Hudson/Mohawk/Erie Canal offered the only potential breakthrough of the Appalachians that existed.
So that was case closed.
I never really considered any other city challenging New York. What I am suggesting is that the linear nature of Manhattan helped create the environment where centrality could be maximized to deliver the platform to make the city what it is.
Sure, other cities in the past grew from core to periphery (Rome and London with such spread at varying times were the greatest cities). But the core remained just that: a core. And thus the core could neither (1) effectively grow nor (2) perhaps most importantly: offer the equality of centrality that Manhattan offered.
Look at that lower 2/3 of Manhattan and you will see an unbelievably large stretch of land that exists with incredible equality. New York moved ever northward on Manhattan and anything "added on" was not periphery but quickly would gain a status akin to the settled parts of the city.
As I mentioned earlier, the very democratic arrangement of the famed Manhattan grid was brilliant. The streets and avenues were numbered and they followed a formula: all N/S avenues were wide, the streets were mostly narrow with major and wide streets included to assist E/W traffic (34th, 42nd, 57th, etc).
Manhattan serves as a spine, making all accessible with minimal north/south transit (be it streetcar, subway, whatever) to connect it.
I have my doubts that any city could be considered the "world capital", but if such a city exists, to me it would be New York. I think only the unique landscape that Manhattan affords to create the conditions for a world capital to exist. Only New York could expand and expand with nothing being peripheral. the core and the city were, in a sense, one and the same.
In an age where the word "network" is oft used and descriptive of our era, no piece of land anywhere is so.....excuse me on this one......networkable.....than this incredibly long and incredibly narrow island. For New York, the networking possibilities were (are) endless....and I'll go on a limb here: I don't think that could be replicated anywhere else on planet earth.
I think you are trying to say too much. NYC is in large part defined by the island of Manhattan, which does allow for a grid system and a N/S transportation system. So far, so good.
But all that, while helpful in some ways to making NY a world-class city, is not the same as saying only Manhattan provides the conditions for a world capital to exist. To circle back, I can’t conceive of splitting New York and London except on the margins. Though I guess the argument could be the Thames connects the disparate nodes of the City and Canary Wharf and Southwark etc in a manner similar to the narrowness of Manhattan.
I think you are trying to say too much. NYC is in large part defined by the island of Manhattan, which does allow for a grid system and a N/S transportation system. So far, so good.
But all that, while helpful in some ways to making NY a world-class city, is not the same as saying only Manhattan provides the conditions for a world capital to exist. To circle back, I can’t conceive of splitting New York and London except on the margins. Though I guess the argument could be the Thames connects the disparate nodes of the City and Canary Wharf and Southwark etc in a manner similar to the narrowness of Manhattan.
I see your point. But I am not really comparing New York to London and I also realize is no less than equal to New York by any metric.
My suggestion is by topography alone, Manhattan arguably exceeds any piece of global real estate in that ability to not spread but to advance (ever northward), keeping everything part of the core, clear up to the northern limits of Central Park.
I think interconnect ability, networking, and the like could not have found a better place to advance what it seeks to do than Manhattan. And if Manhattan did not exist, the world would not have such centralization....but would, of course, still go right on functioning.
None of which I'm suggesting is right....it is all supposition on my part and I would be totally off base on it. More than anything else, I'm suggesting here that New York benefitted and was highly enhanced by Manhattan's topography, that that topography was unbeatable anywhere in the world.
The three largest US core areas are Lower Manhattan, Midtown Manhattan, and the Chicago Loop + its environs. So two of three are in one city, New York.
If New York had not been the shape it is, I contend (and on this I feel most confident), you never would have had two mega-cores. In any other city, intensity wanes as it spreads outward. Not New York which can keep the intensity going.
Again: focus on Midtown. Amazingly the center of the city, the largest core in the world. A place, as I said, where the main streets are 34th, 42nd, 57th....all famous, all carrying a number that seems incongruious with what would be for the largest business district of the world.
A hundred years ago, Midtown was just a neighborhood shown in the photo in the 1920s. Look what it is today. And that never could have been the case if the topography I spoke of was not in place. https://viewing.nyc/vintage-aerial-p...re-circa-1920/
There is nothing that ordained New York to be the greatest city in the world....or even of the United States. What was ordained was the ultimate piece of land offering centrality anywhere in the world. New York, arguably the global city most founded on mercantilism, the city that buys and sells, very much puts up the real estate south of 110th Street up for sale....and the world buys.
I think that the shape of Manhattan island may have helped make NYC a great city (it surely didn't hurt) but I think it was destined to be great based on three things:
1 - the natural gifts of the place -- the latitude, proximity to the Hudson River, climate, solid/stable bedrock foundation, the harbor, and the island. There are logistical challenges and security benefits from being on an island.
2 - the establishment of the city by the Dutch provided some tolerance and openness to ideas and a strong commercial tradition. Because of that, New Amsterdam, and later New York, welcomed strangers and was cosmopolitan from the start.
3 - these first two factors triggered the third: a dynamic commercial engine that forged its own economic future and fostered creativity and inventiveness. Over time, it transcended its place in the nation and became a world city.
In an alternative universe, had Manhattan Island been pear-shaped or crescent-shaped rather than what it is, given the other natural and human attributes, I have no doubt that the inhabitants would have successfully utilized what they had and the place would have still prospered and been globally important.
What it did was concentrate density and that arguably helped concentrate some of the human resources, but it was also a constraint in regards to expansion of that density. If the East River somehow was developable land then I think we'd have a slightly less dense Manhattan, but an overall denser city and more populous early city / metropolitan area.
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