🗽 Manhattan’s unusual street layout is more than just a quirk, it’s a window into New York City’s past! 🏙️ North of 14th Street, the island is famous for its perfect grid: streets run east to west ➡️⬅️ avenues north to south ⬆️⬇️ creating neat, regular blocks all the way up to 155th. This clear order wasn’t always here. Head south of 14th Street and it feels like another world: streets twist, turn, and cross at odd angles 🔀 forming a tangled web that looks more like a European city 🏰 That’s because this is where New York began: in 1626, Dutch settlers founded New Amsterdam 🇳🇱 and laid out roads wherever cattle wandered 🐄 After the British took over 🇬🇧 and renamed it New York, the city kept growing, with old patterns mixing with new ones. By the early 1800s, city leaders wanted order, so they approved the Commissioners’ Plan 📏 covering the northern part of Manhattan with the now-iconic rectangular grid. Today, you can see Manhattan’s history mapped out in its streets: chaos in the south, order in the north. 🗺️

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