Evolution of NYC

Interesting for history/urbanism/New York buffs:

The evolution of the New York skyline

and

The evolution of the New York street grid (review of a book):

The Commissioner’s Plan of 1811, the map and surveying scheme that set the blocks at 200 by 800 feet all the way up the length of the island, was an audacious gamble on growth. From 1790 to 1810, the population of New York had tripled, and the commissioners predicted that by 1860, New York would have almost the same population as Paris, then home to half a million people. (They were wrong, of course — New York would top nearly 800,000 by then.)

(via Swissmiss)