No Hero in 1811, Street Grid’s Father Was Showered With Produce, Not Praise
John Randel Jr., the secretary, surveyor and chief engineer for New York City’s street commissioners, was hardly the most popular public servant of his day.
Beginning in 1808, Randel and his colleagues were pelted with artichokes and cabbages; arrested by the sheriff for trespassing (and often bailed out by Richard Varick, a former mayor); sued for damages after pruning trees; and attacked by dogs sicced on them by property owners irate at the prospect of streets’ being plowed through their properties (“many of whose descendants have been made rich thereby,” Randel noted later).
Randel had the unenviable task of meticulously drafting and executing the street grid plan for Manhattan, which, the commissioners concluded, “appeared to be the best; or, in other and more popular terms, attended with the least inconvenience.”...
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Beginning in 1808, Randel and his colleagues were pelted with artichokes and cabbages; arrested by the sheriff for trespassing (and often bailed out by Richard Varick, a former mayor); sued for damages after pruning trees; and attacked by dogs sicced on them by property owners irate at the prospect of streets’ being plowed through their properties (“many of whose descendants have been made rich thereby,” Randel noted later).
Randel had the unenviable task of meticulously drafting and executing the street grid plan for Manhattan, which, the commissioners concluded, “appeared to be the best; or, in other and more popular terms, attended with the least inconvenience.”...