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A Long History of a Short Block:
Four Centuries of Development Surprises on a Single Stretch of a New York
City Street
1
William Easterly (NYU)
Laura Freschi (NYU)
Steven Pennings (World Bank)
June 2016
Development economists usually (and understandably) evaluate effectiveness of intentional efforts to
achieve economic development. There are few opportunities empirically to appreciate the unintended and
surprising part of development outcomes portrayed by theories of creative destruction and other theories
of spontaneous general equilibrium outcomes not intended by anyone. This paper does a development
case study at an extreme micro level (one city block in New York City), but over a long period of time
(four centuries). We find that (i) development involves many changes in production as comparative
advantage evolves and (ii) most of these changes were unexpected (“surprises”). The block’s history
illustrates how difficult it is for overly prescriptive planners to anticipate changes in comparative
advantage and how such planning could instead stifle creative destruction.
2
I. Introduction
It is widely accepted that at least some important part of development outcomes are the spontaneous result
of a general equilibrium process, such as “creative destruction,” in which no single agent consciously
intended the final outcome. Kenneth Arrow suggested in a classic quote that "the notion that through the
workings of an entire system effects may be very different from, and even opposed to, intentions is surely
the most important intellectual contribution that economic thought has made to the general understanding
of social processes."
Yet there are few opportunities empirically to appreciate the unintended surprises that are part of
development histories. Research in economic development understandably focuses mostly on whether
intentional efforts to improve development outcomes are successful. Even historical case stud ie s of
economic development usually emphasize stories of nations in which most of the focus is on in tention al
policies by national leaders to achieve national development.
Seeking a way to appreciate spontaneous general equilibrium outcomes in development, we undertake a
drastic alternative: a case study of nearly 400 years of history of a single city block in New York City.
The block we study is 486 feet of a north-south street called Greene Street between Houston and Prince
Streets.
2
Today it is part of the luxury residential and retail neighborhood called SoHo in downtown
Manhattan (Figure 1). With a small unit like our block, we can see change initiated at the level of
individual households or firms that in turn make up sectors of economic activity. We see a pattern of
rapid change: new sectors replaced old ones while new households or businesses replaced their
predecessors. Most importantly, the changes were usually surprises (we list six surprises in total). For
example, from 1850 to 1890 the block suddenly went from a high-end residential neighborhood to New
York’s largest concentration of brothels, only to change just as suddenly to be part of the epicenter of
New York (and US) garment manufacturing. The surprises are not evenly spaced – there was about a
century and a half between the first and second surprise, after which they came much faster.
Figure 1: location of the block we study relative to Manhattan neighborhood s today
The small unit of analysis allows us to illustrate why surprises were prevalent. The shocks that affect the
block can vary from what is happening two blocks over to what is happening on the other side of the
world, interacting with trends that affect the world or the US or New York City, or other trends that are
specific to the neighborhood. Moreover, these shocks interact with initial conditions on the block.
Greene Street block for this study
3
a. Relationship to academic literature
A long development literature emphasizes Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth driven by creative
destruction (e.g. Aghion and Howitt 1992). We can observe creative destruction most dramatically at the
level of small units that can show sudden ups and downs.
A more recent literature has also emphasized misallocation of inputs across heterogeneous units with
different TFPs, leading to lower overall TFP (Restuccia and Rogerson 2013). Examples of
heterogeneous units are farms (Adamopoulos and Restuccia 2014), manufacturing plants, Hsieh and
Klenow (2014), and cities (Hsieh and Moretti 2015). We suggest in this case study that the search for
losses from misallocation could include even misallocation across such small geographic units as city
blocks.
One response to micro-level inefficiencies is that there needs to be more development planning to move
scarce factors of production from “obsolete” inefficient units to more productive “modern” units. National
case studies such as those by Wade (1990) and Rodrik (1995, 2001) on the East Asian tigers and Rodrik
(2006) on China describe some success by national lead ers at “picking winners.”
A case study of a block forces us to consider the role of leaderless, spontaneous forces prone to surprises,
making it harder to pick winners. Previous literature (e.g. Benabou 1993) has also portrayed a city as a
complex general equilibrium in which policy and individual decisions interact to produce unanticipa ted
outcomes.
Our case study of one block corrects som e biases understating the chaos of creative destruction, but it
may create new biases. The difficulty of attribution of what was happening on the block to city-wide or
nation-wide policies may understate the public planning that boosted the block. This case study can best
be seen as a reminder that development does not have to be at one extreme or the other, all planned or all
spontaneous. Our block ’s chaotic development path occurred within a framework of some flexible public
planning: street layout, water supply, sewers, fighting crime and fires, publ ic schools, and other public
services.
A longstanding deba te in planning contrasts flexible planning of public servic es and institutions with
more prescriptive planning that aims at specific neighborhood or sectoral outcomes (we will cover an
example of this in the block’s history).
This study obviously overlaps with a rich urban economics literature, even though our original intention
was to do a different kind of case study of economic development. One very relevant literature on urban
policy to address poverty contrasts the efficiency losses associated with place-bas ed subsid ies to les s
distortionary person-based subsidies (Kline and Moretti 2014). Glaeser (2011, Kindle Location 4326-
4327) provides a strong statement of case against place-based policy: “The national government does no
good by favoring particular places, just as it does no good by propping up particular firms or industries.
It’s far better for companies to compete, and it’s also far better for cities to find their own competitive
advantages.”
b. Design of the case study
We selected the block out of convenience because it was close to NYU, and because it had abundant
historical documentation. A possible selection bias was that we knew that the block is a “success story”
today. Selecting on success is not so different from the prevalence in national case studies of analyzing
4
“success stories” like China or the East Asian tigers. Moreover, the larger aggregates to which the block
belongs – New York City and the United States – are also “success stories” and so the block helps
visualize some of the micro successes behind these much larger aggregate successes. Still, we
acknowledge that, like “success sto ries” of nations, a case study of only one block’s success is mostly of
use to illustrate how development success hap pen s; it do es not const itute rig oro us ev iden ce for detailed
policy prescriptions.
In the first two centuries after the Dutch founding of New Amsterdam in 1625, maps and histories allow
us to track the few individuals operating on our block. Beginning in 1834, maps, city directories,
censuses, tax records, and factory inspection reports allowed a recording about every 5 years of alm ost
everyone who was on the block, their econo m ic activ ity, and real estate values.
3
The data is subject to
some errors and omissions, but the num bers enabled description and analysis of what was happening on
the block.
We base our links from shocks to changes on the block on the many specialized histories available (for
example, Gilfoyle (1994) and Sanger (1859) on prostitution in New York) and some contemporary press
accounts (all sources ar e detailed in the endnotes and bibliography). It is the nature of a case study,
however, that we cannot rigorously prove causal links from shocks to changes. Some of the determinants
of change were them selv es endo g enous (transportation infrastructure, for exam ple) , and we are describing
outcomes that are part of a larger general equilibrium.
The rest of the paper proceeds organized into sections corresponding to major changes in comparative
advantage of the block, describing each of the shocks that contributed to chang es – w e call them
“surprises ” when the shocks and changes were generally unanticipated.
II. The agricultural period
Before the Dutch founded New Amsterdam in 1625, the block lay in a forest just north of some wetlands
on Manhattan.
4
There is little knowledge about the Lenape people (later known as Delawares) who
occupied the greater New York region before Europeans arrived.
The earliest records for the block date from the 1640s, when Manhattan was the Dutch colony New
Amsterdam. The Dutch had brought slaves from Africa to New Amsterdam as early as 1626.
5
The Dutch
governor Wi llem Kieft gave parcels on our block and surrounding area to four slaves, Marycke (widow of
Lawrence, December 2, 1643), Anthony Portuguese (before 1644), Gratia D’Angola (December 15,
1644), and Piet er Van Cam pen (April 6, 1647).
6
The borders of the four parcels straddled our block.
These slaves then bec ame “half-free” – meaning that they were free, but their children would remain
slaves.
The gift was not quite as magnanimous as it appears, as Kieft had provoked a war with the Indians that
lasted from February 1643 to August 1645. The slaves formed a buffer against Indian attacks.
7
They
produced food for the city by paying a tax of grain and livestock. Giving this land to slaves also reflected
the low value of the land at the time, which reflected the low population of the city (only 450 people in
1644).
The gift of land to slaves also reflected the low expectations the Dutch had for New Amsterdam. During
the treaty negotiations with the British after the war that resulted in permanent transfer of the colony, the
Dutch at one point addressed the question of whether to retain Suriname or New Amsterdam, and chose
the more promising sugar-producing slave plantations of Suriname.
8
Surprise 1: Dutch expect New York to be less valuable than Suriname.
5
The Dutch did not anticipate the extent to which New York would later prosper through triangular trade
with Caribbean sugar plantations and Britain. As one historian put it, “New York now lived by feeding
the slaves who made the sugar that fed the workers who made the clothes and other finished wares that
New Yorkers didn’t make for themselves.”
9
This trade meant the value of the farmland on Greene Street
increased and the British would not allow slaves to continue ownership. The combination of high
transport costs on land and low transport costs at sea made farmland adjacent to ports especially valuable.
After Dutch New Amsterdam became British New York in 1664, increasingly repressive British laws
against slaves and blacks made it impossible for the ownership of Greene Street by “half-free” slaves to
continue.
10
Figure 2: Lower Manhattan in 1767 Ratzer Map
11
Nicholas Bayard (1644-1707) acquired enough land by 1700 to assemble a large farm, which went from
the northern edge of what is now Chinatown to the southern part of Greenwich Village.
12
Bayard was a
nephew of the last Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, whom he served as private
secretary.
13
After the British takeover, Bayard served as both mayor and alderman of New York. The
Bayard family passed the farm to descendan ts for sev er al gener ation s, reflecting a slower pace of change
for the block com pared to what would happen later. There was no conflict with city growth. The city in
Bayard Farm
Headquarters
Greene Street
Block
Lispenard
Creek and
salt marsh
End of
Broadway
6
1695 only extended to Wall Street. As of 1728, the city had only grown 3 blocks further north of Wall
Street along the west side of Broadway.
14
In 1767, the farm belonged to Nicholas Bayard III (1736–1802), the great-grandson of the first Nicholas
Bayard. The headquarters of the Bayard farm were at t he southeastern corner of SoHo -- what is today
Broome Street just east of Broadway (Figure 2). The Greene Street block was th r ee block s west and two
blocks north of the farm headquarters. Lispenard Creek and its surrounding salt marsh blocked the
northern extension of Broadway (Figure 2) at Duane Street, 14 blocks south of the Greene Street block.
The block itself w a s just two blocks north of the marsh, on a small hill 30 feet above sea level, part of
what the British called the Sand Hills.
15
Nicholas Bayard III went bankrupt and had to sell the Bayard farm on November 1, 1789 to pay his
creditors.
16
The land was split up among 15 separate buyers.
17
III. The residential period
The block had previously been ideal as a food supplier for the city and foreign markets. After enough city
growth, the block would be well-placed for residences on the upper edge of the city for more affluent
citizens to escape the congestion, poor sanitation, and disease downtown. This change was more
predictable than other changes in the block’s history (although the timing was still hard to predict).
The disease downtown included chronic Yellow Fever epidemics-- 1795, 1796, 1802, 1803, 1805, 1819,
and 1822.
18
Contemporary accounts gave the 1822 Yellow Fever epidemic some credit for spurring the
exodus from downtown to Greenwi ch Vi llag e.
19
More affluent residents fled the city in the summer of
1822 for the area near the Greene Street block: “Temporary stores and offices were erecting ... Within a
few days, the Customs House, the Post Office, the Banks, the Insurance office and the printers of
Newspape rs loca ted them se lv es in [Gre enwic h] vil lag e or the upper part of the Broadway [a block from
Greene St], where they were free from the impending danger, and these places almost instantaneously
became the seat of the immense business usually carried on…”
(Hardie 1822 p 42).
The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 also contributed to New York’s northward extension because of
population growth.
20
The city population had been only 33,131 in 1789 when Nicholas Bayard III went
bankrupt; it reached 202,589 by 1830.
21
For the block to be settled as part of the city, the street itself first had to be created as part of a network of
city streets. Centralized planners did lay out many of Manhattan’s streets in the famous Commissioners’
Map of 1811. The Commissioner’s planning only applied to the unsettled parts of the city, north of
Greenwich Village on the west and Houston Street on the east, and hence excluded our block. Nicholas
Bayard III had already hired in 1788 a surveyor named Casimir Goerck to lay out our block and much of
modern SoHo as he was preparing to sell off the Bayard farm as part of bankruptcy proceedings.
Although this was a private proposal for street layout, subsequent maps and planners kept reproducing it
(including the 1811Com missioners’ Map), and the modern streets correspond exactly to the 1788 Goerck
survey.
22
Based on contemporary maps, we infer the first urban housing around 1810.
23
In 1820, city tax
assessment records showed that nine different men owned the 32 lots on our block, though most were still
undeveloped. Only 3 houses and a foundry were recorded. In this same period, the city drained the
wetlands that had obstructed northern city growth along Broadway. The city built a canal along what is
now Canal Street, and leveled the Sand Hills around our block (which provided fill for the wetlands).
24
7
Over the decade 1820-1830, the block had a construction boom. By 1830, the Greene Street block
contained twenty-six houses, a shop, and a Dutch Reformed Church. The block at that time still lay just
inside the northern edge of settlement.
25
An 1835 map shows a public school just northwest of our
block.
26
A private company started operating a horse-drawn omnibus in 1827 along Broadway, to be replaced in
the 1830s and 1840s by many private companies and routes offering horse-drawn streetca rs on rail s. This
facilitated the 1.5 mile commute of residents on the block to jobs downtown.
27
Our first comprehensive records in 1834 show 40 percent of the occupants of the block were merchants or
pursued educated professions such as doctors, lawyers, reverends, or teachers. The other 60 percent
pursued a large variety of crafts characteristic of a pre-industrial economy, such as carpenters,
cabinetmakers, brass-found ers, blacksmiths, bookbinders, and trunk-makers. Figure 3 shows the
combined share of these 3 groups – merchants, educated professions, and craftsmen – accoun ted for
almost all residents of the block until the 1850s.
Figure 3: Occup at iona l shares of occupants on the block during its rise and fall as a residential
neighborhood, 1834-1881 (source: primary data collected for this project)
Block residents were relatively well-off. For those residents th at report ed the valu e of real esta te in the
1850 census, average real estate assets were about $30,000 per household or 260 times contemporary
GDP per capita (for comparison, 260 times GDP per capita today is about $14 million). Mo re than half of
the families in the 1850 census had one or more live-in domestic servants (usually young women born in
Ireland). Our data shows average real estate values on the block doubling from 1830 to 1850.
8
After the 1850s, however, the merchants, professionals, and craftsmen moved further uptown, with the
first two almost disappearing on the block (Figure 3). A new occupation appeared on the block that upper
and middle class res iden ts were un likely to see as acceptab le neig hb or s—sex workers. The first
documented appearances of brothels on the block date from 1859 at 122 Greene Street and 133 Greene
Street.
28
Further improvements and extensions in privately-owned streetcar lines made it feasible for
residents to flee further north in the city while commuting downtown (transportation is endogenous, both
cause and effect of the city’s northward extension).
29
Since we have the names of individuals and businesses on the block (with some omissions) at intervals
between 3 and 5 years, we can estimate turnover from one period to the next.
30
Turnover is often high in
urban neighborhoods, even during “stable” periods. However, the implied rapid change at the block level
is another feature of spontaneous behavior that is often neglected in analyzing larger aggregates. We
calculated turnover for the entire period after 1834 in which we have information on names of residents,
businesses, or business owners. The average annualized probability of staying from one year to the next
for the entire period 1834-2013 is 0.785, which translates to a 30 percent chance of staying in the
neighborhood for 5 years. We will periodically check whether the turnover rate increases dur ing m ajor
shifts in comparative advantage of the block. Indeed, we find at the end of the residential period that the
probability of any one household staying on the block for the next 5 years fell from 30 to 17 percent.
IV. Prostitution
Surprise 2: Greene street becomes ones of New York City’s largest sex-work districts.
By 1870, the Greene Street Block contained 14 brothels, the highest concentration in the City (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Brothels on Greene in 1870 (Source: Gentleman’s Companion; picture reproduced from
New York Times)
Information on brothels understandably does not appear in city directories, but is available from The
Gentleman’s Companion (1870), a pocket guidebook (anonymously published) of brothels in New York;
there was an earlier such guidebook from 1859. More sporadic data comes from police and court
records.
31
We cross-referenced this data against the 1870 and 1880 censuses, which show a distinctive
profile for brothels of an older woman (or sometimes a woman and a man) and a number of young, single
women. Brothels are usually identified in the Census as boarding houses, with the profession of the single
Greene Street Block
9
young women not listed. Most residences have many prostitutes (up to 12), and they are generally in their
early 20s.
The block’s new comparative advantage in sex work reflected in part its proximity to large hotels and
music halls on Broadway, its housing stock of townho uses with multiple small bedrooms left over from
the residenti al per iod, and an overall increase in prostitution in New York.
In the 1840s, both entertainment and prostitution were still downtown and not near the block. But then
two large hotels called the Metropolitan (1852) and St. Nicholas (1853), and a theatre called Niblos
Garden (1849) opened two blocks over on Broadway.
32
Hotels and theaters kept arriving in the
neighborhood;
33
Figure 5 shows those closest to our block in 1879.
Why did the hotels and theatres conglomerate in this part of the city in particular? First, hotels and
theatres wanted to be in the geographic center of town, which was near the Greene St block during the
brothel era – the northern edge of town had reached 23
rd
Street by 1853.
34
Second, there are
agglomeration externalities. Large hotels like the St Nicholas meant that en terta in ment centers and other
hotels all wanted to cluster nearby, attracting more hotels and theatres.
The city-wide factor is the rising demand for both hotels and prostitution. From the 1820s to the 1860s, as
already noted, New York became America’s largest port, an intermediary between domestic and foreign
markets that broug ht travelling business people from all over America, and trader s and seamen from all
over the world. One writer desc rib ed New York’s population in 1861 as “strangers in a strange land,”
making traditional moral norms harder to enforce.
35
Entertainment venues attracted men seeking nightlife to the area near Greene Street and provided a way
for prostitutes to meet them. Many of the shows at the theatres were designed to be titillating: an 1866
production at Niblo’s featured a hundred “semi-nude” women.
36
The 1870 and 1880 Censuses show many
Greene Street brothels had bartenders, musicians and cooks, suggesting that they offered a range of
nighttime entertainment. The brothels apparently were profitable, as our data shows real estate values on
the block doubling from 1860 to 1880.
10
Figure 5: 1879 Bromley map with Greene Street block brothels and nearby hotels and theatres (B
indicates brothel on Greene Street block in 1870 or 1880 or both)
In 1880 the Greene Street was still full of brothels (as documented by the 1880 census), but they then
disappeared. The entertainment area moved further uptown with the continued spread northward of the
city with high population growth. During the late 1870s and early 1880s, eight new theatres opened
around Herald Square (Broadway, 6
th
Avenue and 34
th
Street).
37
The brothels moved too, so later in the
1880s there were few brothels in or around the Greene Street block.
38
Greene Street
Block
11
V. The Rise and Fall of the Garment Industry on Greene Street
Surprise 3: brothels are replaced by a thriving garment business.
The disappearance of the brothels also reflected a new comparative advantage for the block.
Entrepreneurs demolished all bu t two of the small brick houses on the block , and erected new five- and
six-story cast-iron buildings (mostly in 1881-1883, completed by 1889). These buildings were for three
decades near the epicenter of New York City’s huge and profitable garment trade.
39
Real estate values
tripled from 1880 to 1890, then increased further until 1910.
The lowest trough in probabil ity of stay ing on the block in the whole series 1834-2013 corresponds to this
changeover of the building stock. The turnover rate was 98 percent between 1881 and 1886.
A new cast iron technology, invented in late 18
th
century Britain, came to dominate New York
commercial architecture from 1850 to 1880.
40
It relied on mass-produced interchangeable parts so
buildings could be built more quickly and more cheaply than in the past. Recent innovations in elevator
technology allowed these buildings to be taller, while the thin but strong cast-iron columns allowed for
large windows and large open internal spaces.
41
Elias Howe’s upgrade of Singer’s sewing machine helped
manufacturers produce greater volumes of clothing in these factories.
New York City was already the national leader in garment production. Garment production began in the
tenements of the Lower East Side, but moved as regulation and increasing demand for space forced
owners to move out of residential buildings and into purpose-built lofts and warehouses. Between 1860
and 1910, the number of garment plants in New York increased by a factor of 17 (from 600 to 10,000)
while the number of people employed increased by a factor of 8 (from 30,000 to 236,000). In 1905, New
York accounted for 51 percent of the value of clothing manufactured in the United States.
42
The garment industry benefited from new waves of supply of immigrant labor, such as Russian Jews.
Many Russians blamed on Jews the assassination on March 13, 1881 of Tsar Alexander II, and a series of
pogroms followed; then the next Tsar Alexander III issued in May 1882 punitive laws against Jews. So
many Russian Jews immigrated to New York in succeeding years that by 1910 they made up 10 percent
of New York City’s population.
43
In 1890, 90 percent of garment factory owners below 14
th
street were German Jews, who had arrived
during an earlier wave of immigration and had first established businesses in the Lower East Side
tenements before moving to the factories of Greene Street and surrounding blocks. Many Russian Jewish
immigrants had tailoring experienc e, and they lived near the Greene Street block on the Lower East
Side.
44
Massive I talian im mig ration to New York from 1880 to 1910 a lso contributed (by 1910, 7 percent of New
York’s population was Italian-born).
45
Italian immigrants to New York tended to settle in one of four
separate “Little Italys” south of 14
th
street, the most famous of which was a few blocks east and south of
the Greene Street block around Mulberry north of Canal (see figure 6 below). Another Little Italy was
even closer, from West Broadway to Hudson Street, between Canal and West 4
th
street, just two blocks to
the west of the new buildings on Greene Street block.
46
Italian women in particular specialized in the
‘needle trades .’
47
Together, Russian Jews and Italians made up 90 percent of the garment industry’s labor
force in New York City.
48
Greene Street was in a good location within New York City to take advantage of broader developments in
infrastructure an d im mig ra tion . Figure 6 shows the Greene Street block and nearby Hudson River piers in
1890 (0.7 miles away). For example, from the 1870s the White Star line (pier 45) traveled from Liverpool
12
(UK) to New York, with a stop in Ireland. Although immigrants were one of the main cargos, the ships
also carried goods, especially on the route back to Europe.
49
Com pag nie Généra le Tr ansa tla ntiqu e (p ier
42) travelled to Le Havre in France. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company (pier 34) shipped to Panama,
to the West Coast of the US (mostly San Francisco), and to Ch ina and Jap an. The block was also 0.7
miles from the large freight depot for Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Hudson River Railroad, connected to his
New York Central Railroad, which gave the block connections to the markets of the American interior.
50
Within the city, the continuing development of an ever-improving network of elevated railroads,
51
Broadway cable cars,
52
and street car lines
53
made transportation faster between Greene Street block and
these other points, good for the commute of the owners, managers, workers,
54
and customers to the block
(see Figure 6). Freight moved by horse-drawn trucks (later gasoline-powered),
55
in which proximity to the
railroad depots and piers was also important.
The other local fac tor was t hat the Greene Street block was close to Broadway, the most prestigious retail
avenue. Increasing demand for the limited commercial space and consistently high rents on Broadway
pushed many firms into the side streets.
56
The garment firms that moved to the area around Greene Street
used the ground floor with its large windows and light-fille d spaces to disp lay m erchand ise and tak e
orders from customers. Firms used upper floors for manufacturing and storage.
57
New York real estate agent Leon Tanenbaum testified that in 1880 Broadway had held all manner of
“clothiers, dealers in gents’ furnishing goods, jobbers, furriers, and tailors’ and clothiers’ trimming
dealers, suit and cloak manufacturers” but had witnessed at the end of the decade a “comparatively large
influx to the cross streets.” These firms abandoned Broadway because the new buildings were “superior
to most of the old-time buildings on Broadway as they have passenger and freight elevators, steam heat,
sanitary plumbing, good light and ventilation, and other attractive features all of which are essential to the
health, comfort and convenience of those who transact their business in them.”
58
In 1886, business
directories show a total of 66 business listings on the block, of which 82% are garment-related.
The garment industry was prone to clustering, as the maps from the Factory Inspector’s Department show
(Figure 7 below). Agglomeration economies in this context reduced garment firms’ costs of transporting
goods (raw materials and finished clothing), people (the labor force and customers) and ideas (new styles
and trends for each new season, as well as improvements in manufacturing and marketing technologies.)
13
Figure 6: Transport and Neighborhoods around Greene [1890 Broadway Central Hotel Map, dotted
red lines show stree tcar lin e s, solid red li nes show cabl e cars]
By 1890 the transformation to a commercial and industrial zone on our Greene Street block was
complete. The Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide of 1890 declared the block now thriving and
respectable, though they alluded to the block’s dissolute recent past:
During the last few years the wholesale trade has invaded…in considerable force. Mercer street,
Greene street, and measurably Wooster street, have become business streets in sympathy with the
movement on Broadway; and they have been lined with some very respectable wholesale
14
warehouses as far northward as Houston street. A man can walk though those streets now without
hearing himself too frequently accosted through closed window shutters.
59
About the development of the cast-iron business district, the same writer opined: “it is doubtful whether
the reconstruction of a long-improved district by individual enterprise ever went so far in so short a
time.”
60
Surprise 4: the garment industry moves uptown and Greene Street enters a long decline
The same technological advances that began the boom on the block ended the boom after 1910. Further
advances in building technology and demand for new, bigger, more modern spaces pushed the garment
industry’s cen ter of agg lomera tion further uptown.
Figure 7 shows the Greene Street block (marked in red) in 1900 still in the c enter o f the city’s la rg e st
cluster of women’s clothing firms. By 1922, the Greene Street block had only a few women’s garment
businesses left compared to the large uptown clusters.
16
After three decades (1880-1910) of high real estate prices on the block, there was a steep drop from 1910
to 1920, leaving the value of the block lower than it had been in 1870 before the garment boom.
The Trian g le Sh ir tw ai st fi re of March 25, 1911 increased demand for safety regulations. 146 people,
mainly immigrant women, died when a fire broke out on the top three floors of the garment factory at the
corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, 6 blocks north of our block. As technologies allowing
safer buildings continued to evolve, and the Triangle Fire helped unions agitate for better working
conditions for factory workers, the garm e nt ind ustry shif te d in to the newer, safer buildings.
The older buildings on our stretch of Greene Street found it hard to keep up with new fire safety
standards. Even if they could partially evade new fire safety regulations, they were then penalized by
insurance costs. The cost of fire insurance for textile firms w as much lower in the safer buildings
uptown.
62
Technological change also gave the new buildings efficiency advantages in addition to better fire safety.
In 1922, the newest buildings had chutes and central package processing rooms to alleviate some of the
chaos and congestion caused by the trucks that come to pick up finished packages at the end of each
workday. They were up to 24 stories tall with more than 30,000 square feet per floor (compared to an
average of 4,000 square feet per floor on the Greene Street block), allowing plenty of room for the larger,
horizontal conveyor belts allowing factories to produce ever-larger volumes. Further improvements in
rapid transit (including the opening of the first subway line, along Broadway, in 1904) made it feasible for
workers to commute further uptown to the new garment center.
63
The buildings on Greene Street after the garment bust remained inhabited, although by different kinds of
businesses. The probability of staying on the block from one year to the next fell in 1910 and stayed low
through the early 1920s (implying annual turnover of 40 percent per annum, which implies 92 percent
turnover in 5 years). Only the US Postal Service did any further construction on the block after the boom,
a post office on the northeast corner of Prince and Greene in 1910.
VI. The Battle over Presc rip ti ve Plann ing
The middle of the 20
th
century saw a battle over the neighborhood (soon to be christened SoHo, for South
of Houston) and its Greene Street block. Two visions for the area competed with each other, with
prescriptive planners like Robert Moses, on one side, against neighborhood activists and those who
emphasized spontaneous development like Jane Jacob s, on the other side.
The planners’ desire to address the urban blight was understandable. In the 1930s, homeless and
unemployed men constructed a squatter’s camp at the north end of the block, which became known as
“Packing Box City”.
64
The Holden-McLaughlin Plan of 1946 proposed to make both Houston and Broome into major
expressways for truck traffic, and to demolish and redevelop all of modern-day SoHo. The plan said that
all of SoHo, shown as Area C in Figure 8, “has reached such a state of depreciation and obsolescence that
recent public improvements seem to have had little effect upon it” a nd is “recommended for cl ear ance and
redevelopment.”
17
Figure 8: Illustration from the Holden-McLaughlin Plan of 1946, showing Greene Street Block
(arrow) in the center of the “obsolete area.”
From 1922 to 1946, the land on our block depreciated by around 50%. When calculating the assets on
our block specifically, the Holden-McLaughlin planners said that “None of the present buildings in the
block are really worth preserving. This is a clear case calling for complete demolition and complete
replacement…the depreciation is so widespread that improvement cannot take place except by concerted
action.” The planners suggested using eminent domain as a strategy “to prevent obstruction through
holdouts.”
Urban planners believed the block’s former success at manufacturing could be revived through such
concerted action. The 1946 Holden-McLaughlin Plan included another map showing their in te nded
replacement of all of Soho, including Greene Street, by “New Modern Loft & Manufacturing & Storage.”
The federal government began providing cities subsidies for “slum clearance” under Title I of the US
Housing Act of 1949.
65
Urban planners also believed they needed to supply new types of residential
neighborhoods. They thought the street-cente red urb an g rid system created unhealthy living conditions,
depriving people of open space, air, and light. The proposed remedy was the superblock containing
“towers in a park,” creating enormous tall buildings set back from the street amid open plazas and green
space.
66
In a 1953 speech, the city’s most famous and powerful urban planner, Robe rt Moses sa id:
I take this occasion to plead for the courageous, clean-cut, surgical removal of all our old
slums.… [T]here can be no real neighborhood reconstruction, no superblocks …no widening of
boundary streets… without the unflinching surgery which cuts out the whole cancer and leaves no
part of it which can grow again, and spread and perpetuate old miseries.
67
Greene Street block
18
In Moses’ defense, he had previously helped provide such public goods as highway arteries necessary for
New York’s continuing development. But the Holden-McLaughlin Plan and Moses’s plans for the block
and its surrounding neighborhood exemplified the most prescriptive kind of planning, trying to directly
determine outcomes on the block. From 1951 on, Moses unveiled plans that proposed to tear down 53
acres of existing buildings, to consolidate 27 village blocks into 10 “superblocks.” He also sought to turn
Fifth Avenue into a north-south four lane highway that would extend straight through the middle of
Washington Square Park, bisect SoHo and join with a “Lower Manhat tan Expre ss w ay ” (LOMEX) that
would run along east-west along Broome Street (2 blocks south of Greene Street), connecting New Jersey
and Long Island. A 1960 version of the LOMEX plan required eviction of 2,000 families and 800
businesses. Alternative LOMEX designs discussed in the 1960s included 80-foot-high skyways.
68
These same plans mobilized neighborhood resistance. A Joint Emergency Committee to Close
Washington Square Park to Traffic—derided by Moses as “a bunch of mothers”— won a first victory, a
ban of automobile traffic through Washington Square Park.
Jane Jacobs gained city-wide and national attention for her defense of bottom-up evolution of high-
density neighborhoods in her book “The Death and Life of American Cities” in 1961. Jacobs mounted an
attack on Modernist urban planning: “As in the pseudoscience of bloodletting, just so in the
pseudoscience of city rebuilding and planning… a plethora of subtle and complicated dogma have arisen
on a foundation of nonsense.”
Jacobs articulated a different vision of the successful city, one based on people spontaneously reacting to
other people:
…[T]hat the sight of people attracts still other people, is something that city planners and city
architectural designers seem to find incomprehensible. They operate on the premise that city
people seek the sight of emptiness, obvious order and quiet. Nothing could be less true. The
presences of great numbers of people gathered together in cities should not only be frankly
accepted as a physic al fact – they should also be enjoyed as an asset and their presence
celebrated…
69
The combination of local resistance and Jacobs’ alternative vision de feated Mo s es’ plans. Robe rt Moses
lost his post in 1968.
70
VII. The Artists and Art Galleries
Surprise 5: artists and art galleries move onto Greene Street
A surprising and accidental factor helped attract artists and galleries into the cast iron buildings on Greene
Street and surrounding blocks -- the growing size of artists’ canvases, sculptures and experimental works,
reflecting international artistic trends.
71
For example, Abstract Expressionism was a New York-based but
internationally prestigious movement that featured “monumentally scaled works.”
72
In 1966, New York
Times art critic Grace Glueck asked, “Will today’s art, getting bigger all the time, outgrow the uptown
scene?” To accom modate the new larger canv ases , small uptown galleries “must dismantle stair rails,
remove doorframes and hoist whole shows through windows.”
The large spaces at low rents in SoHo did not have that problem. Galleries in SoHo, like Leo Castelli at
142 Greene Street, were well-suited to exhibiting large canvases like those by Robert Rauschenberg, Roy
Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns.
73
By 1980, SoHo showed a large concentration of art galleries (Figure
9).
74
19
Figure 9: Soho’s concentration of art galleries. Picture reproduced From Eric Homberger, The
Historical Atlas of New York City
Meanwhile, the previous industrial occupants of the Greene Street were going out of business or moving.
Greene Street followed the citywide trend of a decline in manufacturing, another trend the would-be
urban planners of Greene Street had failed to anticipate.
Figure 10 shows the nonresidential sectoral shares on the block, based on our detailed dataset over the
entire period 1834-2013. We see the previous eras of craftsmen working at home, sex work, garment
boom and bust, and then mixed industrial use during the “slum” period. After 1960, paper and printing
and and other manufacturing disappear on the block as art is t residents and galleries moved in.
20
Figure 10 Non-residentia l composi tion o f the block 1834 -2013
The arrival of th e ar tists and galleries assured the survival of the buildings in SoHo. Margot Gayle, the
founder of the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture, commented in the New Yorker: "It was lucky that the
artists and sculptors started moving into the lofts here, because they attracted attention to the buildings
and caused people for the first time in generations to see what lay back of the rust and grime and the
general disrepair that hid their beauty. Often, it turns out that these buildings are the most valuable
heritage a city has.”
Gayle was right that the inherited capital stock of the block from the days of the garment boom, saved by
the artists, would prove extremely valuable to the block and the city.
VIII. The Present
Surprise 6: An explos ion in prope rty pri ces as Green e Street becomes one of NYC’s premier luxury
retail/residential areas.
Real estate values on the block doubled from 1970 to 1990. After the 1990s, the high rents made possible
by artists and art galleries drove out the artists and art galleries. Artists moved on to new neighborhoods --
Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the 1990s, or Bushwick today. Art galleries after the 1980s-1990s high point
(see Figure 10 above again) moved to places with much lower rents, such as Chelsea.
For the non-residential addresses in the block, the declining art galleries on the block were replaced in the
new millennium mainly by luxury clothing retail stores (Figure 10 above), returning the block to
garments again a century after the first garment boom. Our time series on turnover rates of inhabitants of
the block also shows more neighborhood stability in the art and residential/retail periods compared to the
21
trough at the end of the previous garment boom, with the annualized probability of staying on the block
staying between 0.85 and 0.9.
The resident ar tists and galleries s et the stage for the re viv al of the block as an upper class residential
neighborhood after 1980 for the first time in more than a century. Our data shows a surge in the share of
addresses occupied by residents, which has continued up to the present.
In 2002, Apple opened its largest retail store to date, and the first in New York City, on our Greene Street
block. This was a harbinger of today’s block of m ainly luxury retail stores on the ground floors and high
income residents on the upper floors. Heavy traffic by shoppers and tourists for brands with more mass
appeal on the SoHo blocks of Broadway two blocks over seems to fuel a market for higher-end retail on
parallel side streets like Greene. Today, Greene Street between Prince and Houston features such
designer stores (some of them new arrivals even while we worked on this paper) as Ralph Lauren, Paul
Smith, Alessi, Proenza Schouler, Dior, Costume National, Hug o Boss, and Warby Parker.
For example, the cast iron building at 133 Greene (the former site of an 1 850 resid ence, then a brothel,
and then a garm en t factory ) is a co-op, with its ground floor occupied by Christian Dior Homme. The
residents on the upper floors are an international group of successful real estate professionals,
businessmen, academics and architects. The last five units sold in the building had sale prices between
$2.5 and $3 million.
Recent stories in the real estate press serve as a snapshot of the block’s current image: “Greene Street
turns to gold,” “the hottest block,” “a magnet for high-end shops and shoppers alike,” “the little Madison
Avenue of SoHo,”
75
“Greene Street has become the street in Soho.”
76
Figure 11 summarizes all our previous information on average real estate values rising and falling and
then adds the data up to the present. The logarithmic scale shows an eightfold increase in real estate
values in 1990-2010, by which measure the block is more successful than ever before in its history.
22
Figure 11: Real estate value of the block, 1830-2010, millions of 2012 dollars, base 2 logarithmic
scale
IX. Conclusion
A long history of one city block shows a pattern of recurrent surprises. The Dutch did not expect New
York to thrive when they gave the Greene Street block to slaves and then gave up New York altogeth er in
favor of Suriname (Surprise 1). The affluent residents of the block in 1830-1850 did not expect brothels
(Surprise 2). The brothel owners, workers, and customers in 1880 were likely surprised to see a thriving
garment industry take over the block (Surprise 3). The g arment industry did not ex pect the sev ere
downturn after 1910 (Surprise 4). The urban planners in the 1940s and 1950s did not anticipate the block
would explode in value again, first with art galleries (Surprise 5), and then with today’s luxury retail
stores and residen ces (Surprise 6). The block’s story ends in the present at a high point in real estate
value, but the history reminds us that the next surprise could be negative.
Although we cannot directly measure TFP, it is one of the major determinants of value of the block, and
so volatile land value is at l east suggestive of large TFP volatility, at least partly driven by the surprises of
creative destruction. The migration of particular sectors and sector-specific factors of production into and
out of our block is suggestive of sector-speci fic TFP sho ck s. The long period between Surprises 1 and 2,
contrasted with much shorter periods between the last 5 surprises, is consistent with a picture of creative
destruction accelerating after the pre-industrial period.
Unlike US economic development, the block does not show a steady trend but a succession of rises and
falls and rises, with the swings unpredictable and contingent on the interaction of many factors, some
23
local, some citywide, some national, and some global. The block was built up, then torn down and rebuilt,
then almost torn down again by city planners, then surviving to make possible today’s success.
The long period of depressed real estate values in the 1920s through the 1950s illustrates how painful it is
to tolerate the “destruction” side of spontaneous creative destruction. Yet if the prescriptive planners like
Robert Moses who sought to cure the block’s perceived failure at th a t time had succeeded, they would
likely hav e prevent ed the success on the block from the 1970s through the present.
As we have already emphasized, there were more flexible types of public planning that did take place and
that contributed to the long-run success of the block – such as laying out street grids, draining the
swamps, the Erie Canal, providing public schools, water, sanitation, fire services, and policing. At the
same time, economic and political freedoms allowed the spontaneous forces to operate within this flexible
planning, operating through both markets and politics (such as the activism of Jane Jacobs and her allies).
The chaotic four-century history of this one city block suggests that such spontaneous forces play a larger
role in development than is appreciated when the focus is understandably on inten ti o na l act io ns to
produce desirable outcomes. The history of the block dramatizes Kenneth Arrow’s quote that opened this
paper on one of the biggest insights of economics --that desirable outcomes can occur even when no one
agent intended them.
24
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Endnotes
1
We are grateful for tireless research assistance from Marina Kosyachenko, and for comments received from Helen
Epstein, and comments at an NYU M arron Institute brown-bag seminar and the NYU Develop ment Research
Institute conference, “Cities and Development: Urban Determinants of Success”. We are very grateful for support
from the John Templeton Foundation for this research. Any views expressed here are the autho rs’ and do not
necessarily represent those of the Templeton Foundation, the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries
they repre s ent.
2
including the buildings on both sides of the street and the corners at each end
3
The sources are: US Federal Census Records, 1830-1880; NYC Reside ntial and Commercial Directories, 1834-
present; NYC Tax Assessment Records, 1808-1940s; Sanborn Manhattan Land Book, 1905-present; NYS Factory
Inspectors Reports, 1890-1913; NYC Reverse Listing Telephone Books, 1930-1993.
4
Based on the careful ecological reco nstruction project by Sanderson (2013), using old maps that showed ecological
features like the British Headquarters Map (1783).
5
Foote 2004, Chapter 1.
6
Map of Original Grants and Fa rms (Plates 84B-a and 84B-b), in Stokes and Macarthy 1928; Stokes 2008; Dolkart
2006, p. 11
7
Rink 1986; Stokes 2008; Kammen 1995, pp. 44-46
8
Shorto (2005), p. 295
9
Burrows and Wallace 1999, p 122.
10
Foote 2004; Christoph 1983;
11
Matching modern street names and places to this map is based on others who have done the same exercise with
this or related maps with the natural features, such as Sanderson (2013, Kindle Location 600), and the 1865 Egbert
Viele Map.
12
Landmarks Preservation Commission 1973, pp. 4-5; Map of Original Grants and Farms (Plates 84B-a and 84B-b),
in Phelps Stokes and Macarthy 1928;1868 Map of the West Bayard Farm by J.B. Hol mes (reproduci ng the situation
as of 1788). Augustine Herrman (1 605-1686), a former Dutch West Ind i a Company official o riginally fr om Prague,
had acquired the land around the block in the 1660s. He left the land in his will to his brother-in-law -- Nicholas
Bayard.
13
Bayard’s mother was Stuyvesant’s sister, while his father’s sister was Stuyvesant’s wife.
14
Maps in New York Public Library collection: New Yorke, 1695 in History of the city of New York : its origin,
rise and progress. (New York : Barnes, 1877-1896) Lamb, Martha J. (Martha Joanna) (1829-1893), and The City Of
Ne w Yo rk From An Actual Survey By James Lyne, 1 728. We note some caveats about the evidence from maps here
and later: (1) some of them are later reconstructions, such as the 1695 map in this note. (2) some maps show street
layouts proposed, and not actual streets or buildings. Street layout is an indicator of growth of the city but should not
be equated to actual building and settlement. T he 1767 Ratzer map is one of those maps that shows proposed street
layouts alon g with actual streets. However, we confirmed th e Ratz e r map implications for the extent of settle ment
along Bro adway by checking it against t he 1775 Montresor map and the 1782 British Headquarters Map, which both
do sho w actual settlement.
15
Confirmed also by the 1865 Egbert Viele map that retrospectively showed the street grid mapped onto pre-
settlement water courses and wetlands. The 1775 Montresor map shows the Sand Hills labeled by the name the gave
them, Zantberg. For other evidence on the Sand Hills, see Steiger 2015, p. 53, Sanderson (2013, Kindle Location
834), and British Headquarters Map 1783. Janvier 1894 (pp. 40,192-194) gives a historical account confirming the
blockage of northern settlement along Broadway by the wetlands, and describes the Sand Hills (p. 203).
16
The Revolutionary War had disrupted the farm’s operation, accelerating a transition out of agriculture that was
going to happen sooner or later anyway. The British Headquarters Map 178 3 shows British fortifications and
destroyed “rebel fortifications” crossing the farm. The 1782 Map of New York by John Hills shows the Bayard farm
headquarter s just east of Bro adway insid e the British fortifications, with the rest of the farm lying o utsid e the
fortifications. The war also reduced city population, reducing the demand for the farm’s output.
17
From the notes to the 1868 Map of the West Bayard Farm by J.B. Holmes (reproducing the situation as of 1788).
A merchant and broker named James Saidler (1751-1803) purchased the southern portion of our block. Anthony
Lispenard Bleecker (1741-1816 ) purchased the northern port ion. Bleecker was a r eal estate speculator and the owner
28
of the neighboring Bleecker Farm who gave hi s name to Bleecker Stre et (one blo ck north of our blo ck). Another
buyer was one of the founde rs o f Wall St reet, a second generation Portuguese Jewish i mmigr ant named Benjamin
Seixas. We take note of him because his grandson of the same name we later find residing on our block at 133
Greene Street in the 1850 Census. Seixas senior bought a small portion 6 blocks west of our block, on the northwest
corner of what is now Houston and Sixth Avenue. We also located others of his descendants (relatives of the 1850
Benjamin Seixas) residing in the Soho area between 1830 and 1850.
18
Duffy (1968), pp. 101-121.
19
See also quotes in Janvier 1894, pp. 144-146.
20
In the mid 1 8 0 0s agglomeration forces became much stronger due to changes in shipping technologies across the
Atlantic. According to Glaeser (2005), the advent of faster and safer large ships changed the cross-Atlantic trade
from a point-to-point system to a hub-and-spo ke system. Because the Erie Canal connected New York to interior
markets, New York triumphed over Philadelphia and other ports as the preferred hub. See a lso Albion and Pope
(1939), and Bernstein (2005).
21
http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/twps0027.html
22
Greene Street was eventually named after Revolutionary War hero General Nathanael Greene, while Houston
Street was named after the husband of Nicholas Bayard I II’s daughter Mary, William Houstoun. Koeppel (2015)
23
Stephen Ludlow’s survey map Dec 29 1813, as seen in Stephen Ludlam, Properties between Greene and Mercer
Street south of Houston (New York Historical Society, 1835). See Commissioners Map 1811, which shows
development just past the block, and 1803 map show development not yet reaching the block. The Plan of the city of
New York, 1808 (Copied from D. Longworth's map of 1808 for D.T. Valentine's Manual for 1852) sho ws Greene
Street surrounded by farms and tree s . Buildings are ad vancing up Broadway but none yet north o f S prin g Street
.Adams et al. 1929 (p. 53) reproduces a map confirming the Commissioner’s Map for 1811, but then shows little
movement to 1817.
24
Janvier (1894), pp. 68, 207. Steinberg (2015), p. 66; Sanderson (2013, Kindle Location 856), Burrows and
Wallace 1998, p. 359. Parts of the old wetlands area are still prone to flooding d uring heavy rain storms, such as the
intersection of Grand and West Broad way 3 blocks south and 2 blocks west of the Greene Street block.
25
City tax assessment records; Hooker's New Pocket Plan Of The City Of New York, 1829; David H. Burr map
1832. These maps show the extent of settlement as a shaded area. This evidence should be taken with some caveats
as it is not clear what the evidence of settlement is based on, and there is sometimes disagreement between different
maps made around the same time.
26
Henry S. Tanner map 1835.
27
Records that list both places of business and residence confirmed such downtown commutes on our block; Roess
and Sansone 2013, pp. 54-58, discuss the transit history.
28
Timothy Gilfoyle, author of City of Eros, kindly shared his primary source data with us, which helped us
document the 1859 brothels. 133 and 122 Greene Street were listed as brothels in an 1859 publication in New York,
“Director y to t he Seraglios in New York, Philadelp hia, Boston, and all the pr incipal cities in the Union,” with the
author given as “Free loveyer.” Both addresses were listed brothels in an 1870 list (see below). 122 Greene Street
was listed in the 1861 City Directory as a female-headed boardinghouse, consistent with being a brothel from later
evidence matching such entrie s with an 1870 listing o f New York brothels (see below).
29
Roess and Sansone 2013, p. 60; Adams et al. 1929, p. 53. Lockwood (1976) discusses the general pattern of the
upper cla s s moving steadil y northward with the northern growth of t he cit y.
30
We start with the fraction of individuals who remain from one benchmark year to the next, p
N
, and back
out the annualized probability of staying p
A
N
where there are T years between the benchmark years
(assuming a constant exit rate):
(1)
=
31
Timothy Gilfoyle, author of City of Eros, kindly shared his primary source data with us, which helped us
document the 1859 brothels. 133 and 122 Greene Street were listed as brothels in an 1859 publication in New York,
“Director y to t he Seraglios in New York, Philadelp hia, Boston, and all the pr incipal cities in the Unio n,” with the
author given as “Free loveyer.” Both addresses were listed brothels in an 1870 list (see below). 122 Greene Street
29
was listed in the 1861 City Directory as a female-headed boardinghouse, consistent with being a brothel from later
evidence matching such entries with an 1870 listing o f New York brothels (see belo w).
32
Niblos Garden was rebuilt from a previous incarnation after a fire and reopened in 1849.
33
Hotels: Hotel de Europe (550 Houston), Smithsonian Hotel (604-6 Broadway), Metropolitan hotel (580
Broadway), Collamore Hotel (532 Broadway), Prescott House (531 Broadway) and St Nicolas Hotel (519
Broadway). E nter ta inment venue s: Me tropolitan/Tripler Hall (677 Broadway), Old Stuyvesant Hall, Pfaff’s Café
(645 Broadway), Laura Keene’s Olympic Theatre (624 Broadway), Niblo’s Garden Theatre (Prince & Crosby)
Henry Wood’s Marble Hall (561 Broadway), Taylors’ Saloon (555 Broadway)
34
Atlases of New York city. / Maps of the city of New York / surveyed under directions of insurance companies of
said city. Perris & Browne 1853 Plate 3 2; also for Niblos Garden see
Samuel Augustus Mitchell map 1853. The
hotel building boom in the early 1850s may also reflect the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations
which was held in New York City in 1853.
35
Samuel Halliday quoted in Gilfoyle (1992) City of Eros p113
36
Ibid., p.1 28, 130
37
Gilfoyle, City of Eros, p. 204
38
Gilfoyle, City of Eros.P 200
39
Selekman et al. (1928)
40
Landmarks Preservation Commission 1973, p. 10, 22.
41
Nevius and Nevius ( 2009 )
42
Pratt (1911), p. 40, p. 80. Filipetti 1925, p. 15 found the share of New York in US women’s clothing to be 72.5
percent in 1919, 42 percent for men’s clothing, 66 percent for millinery and lace goods.
43
Jackson (1995), p. 584; Binder and Reimers (1995)
44
Sachar (1992)
45
Jackson (1995), p. 584
46
Brown ( 2007), Dolkart 2006 pp. 44-46; Binder and Reimers(1995), p. 136
47
Odencrantz (1919), Kessner (1977)
48
Selekman et al (1928)
49
On the return leg, the steerage would be used for live sto c k, giving it the nickname “cattle c la ss”.
50
The terminal opened in 1868 and thereafter “acted as a magnet” to warehouses to relocate from their old locations
near the East Side port facilities (Burro ws and Wallace, p. 944-945). Shown on Watson’s New Map of New York
and Adjacent Cities, 1874
51
Opening in 1878, a north-south eleva ted railroad we nt down Sixth Avenue, then over on Housto n, and down West
Broadway, the street two blocks over parallel to Greene Street. Map of New York and vicinity 1893, 1901 George F.
Cra m & Co ; Rand McNally Atlas 1897, New York City. 1901 Map still shows Hudson RR depot. Roess and
Sansone 2013, pp. 100-112.
52
Burrows and Wallace 1998, pp. 1057-1058
53
1880 New-York City Guide Map by D.A. Edsal shows “Car and Stage Lines,” referring to horse-drawn car s on
rails: Broadway and Unive rsity Place Line running down Greene Street north-south, Avenue C line has b ranches
running East-West on Prince and Ho us ton. Electric trolleys began to replace horse-drawn streetcars in the 1890s.
The first subway lines opened in 1904. (Roess and Sansone 2013)
54
Pratt ( 19 11, pp. 120-123) did a survey tha t found 26 percent of male workers and 39 percent of female workers in
Manhattan below 14th Street walked to work; the remainder took streetcars. He found (pp. 139- 141 ) tha t the
percentage walking to work was higher among workers who were Russian Jews (male 44 percent and female 61
percent ) and Italians (male 55 percent and female 75 percent )
55
Filipetti 19 25, p. 63
56
“The New Mercantile District.” Real Estate Record and Builders Guide 46 (October1890): 1-54.
57
Gayle, Margot (1983) and Burrows and Wallace (1999) p. 878
58
“The New Mercantile District.” Real Estate Record and Builders Guide (1890), p.24.
30
59
Real Estate Record and Builders Guide
60
Ibid.
61
Filipetti 19 25, p. 23 shows a similar map shift from 1900 to 1922 for wholesale fur establishments, which had also
been represented on our block.
62
Pratt 1911
63
Roess a nd Sansone (2013), p. 167
64
A picture of Packing Box City in 1933 is available in the online appendix to this paper. “Shacktown Pulls
Through t he Winte r: T he Unemplo yed in Their Shanty Villages Do the Best They Can With Lit t le and Hold Their
Heads High,” The New Y ork Times, March 26, 1933.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F00C1FFE3D5E1A7A93C4AB1788D85F478385F9
65
Ballon 2007.
66
Ibid.
67
NYPL archives
68
Ballon (2007)
69
Jacobs 1961
70
Flint 2009
71
A Columbia University Professor named Chester Rapkin in a 1963 report on the neighborhood had included a
photograph, dated 1962, which reads: “Artist in resident on the fourth floor. Behind this inauspicious exterior a man
of creativity and taste has transformed bleak, undifferentiated space into a graceful atmosphere for working and
living.” Landmarks Preservation Commission 1973, p. 8
72
Abstract Expressionism, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/abex/hd_abex.htm
73
Gayle (1983)
74
For the story of artists and galleries in Soho, see also Kostelanetz (2003) and Simpson (1981)
75
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20140310/REAL_ESTATE/140319988/greene-street-turns-to-gold-with-
potential-new-tenant
76
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-13/google-searches-for-space-in-nyc-s-soho-for-retail-store.html
nfhGCtuSd
ghcUxXelYDqAr
Google street view of the block: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greene+St+%26+W+Houston+St,+New+York,+NY+10012/@40.7258084,-73.9986926,3a,90y,218.05h,83.95t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sM9uV-x4wPP-LV62WXmV1lw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c2598e48f2cb83:0x5deaf639b1ec9f42!8m2!3d40.7262266!4d-73.9983168
Kenneth Arrow (23 August 1921 – 21 February 2017) was an American economist, mathematician, writer, and political theorist. He was the joint winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with John Hicks in 1972.
In economics, he was a major figure in post-World War II neo-classical economic theory. His most significant works are his contributions to social choice theory, notably "Arrow's impossibility theorem", and his work on general equilibrium analysis. He has also provided foundational work in many other areas of economics, including endogenous growth theory and the economics of information.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arrow
William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute. He works in different areas of the developing world and transition economies, including Africa, Latin America, and Russia.
Laura Freschi is the Managing Director of the NYU Development Research Institute.
Steven Pennings is an Economist in the World Bank's Development Research Group, Macroeconomics and Growth Team.
Sources:
1) http://www.williameasterly.org/
2) https://marroninstitute.nyu.edu/people/laura-freschi
3) https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/people/s/steven-pennings
Why are there 'spaces' scattered throughout this paper. Makes reading a chore.
Comparative advantage describes how, under free trade, an agent will produce more of and consume less of a good for which they have a comparative advantage.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
“Creative destruction, coined by Joseph Schumpeter (1942), who considered it ‘the essential fact about capitalism’, refers to the incessant product and process innovation mechanism by which new production units replace outdated ones. This restructuring process permeates major aspects of macroeconomic performance, not only long-run growth but also economic fluctuations, structural adjustment and the functioning of factor markets. Over the long run, the process of creative destruction accounts for over 50 per cent of productivity growth. At business cycle frequency, restructuring typically declines during recessions, and this add a significant cost to downturns. Obstacles to the process of creative destruction can have severe short- and long-run macroeconomic consequences.”
Source: https://economics.mit.edu/files/1785#:~:text=Creative%20destruction%20refers%20to%20the%20incessant%20product%20and%20process%20innovation,the%20essential%20fact%20about%20capitalism'.
Background on the long and complicated history of New Amsterdam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Amsterdam
As this is such an unconventional paper in the field of development economics, here is a little bit of background about the field:
“Development economics is a branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development process in low income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic growth and structural change but also on improving the potential for the mass of the population, for example, through health, education and workplace conditions, whether through public or private channels. Development economics involves the creation of theories and methods that aid in the determination of policies and practices and can be implemented at either the domestic or international level. This may involve restructuring market incentives or using mathematical methods such as intertemporal optimization for project analysis, or it may involve a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. Unlike in many other fields of economics, approaches in development economics may incorporate social and political factors to devise particular plans. Also unlike many other fields of economics, there is no consensus on what students should know. Different approaches may consider the factors that contribute to economic convergence or non-convergence across households, regions, and countries.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_economics
"In economics, total-factor productivity (TFP), also called multi-factor productivity, is usually measured as the ratio of aggregate output (e.g., GDP) to aggregate inputs. Under some simplifications about the production technology, growth in TFP becomes the portion of growth in output not explained by growth in traditionally measured inputs of labour and capital used in production. TFP is calculated by dividing output by the weighted average of labour and capital input, with the standard weighting of 0.7 for labour and 0.3 for capital. Total factor productivity is a measure of economic efficiency and accounts for part of the differences in cross-country per-capita income. The rate of TFP growth is calculated by subtracting growth rates of labor and capital inputs from the growth rate of output."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_factor_productivity