Print Email Facebook Twitter The Backbone of the Metropolis: How the development of rapid transit determined the becoming of the New York City Metropolis Title The Backbone of the Metropolis: How the development of rapid transit determined the becoming of the New York City Metropolis Author Schreurs, P.H.M. Faculty Architecture Department Architecture Date 2009-03-31 Abstract The Rapid Transit system in New York City, with its underground and elevated railroads, has clearly been a very important factor in the development of the New York City metropolis as we know it today. Not solely as a means of transportation through the vast amount of land that is covered by the city, but also as a means of development for the city’s spatial configurations, organizational patterns and even building typologies. New York’s developmental history is probably more closely interwoven with the development of its rapid transit system than any other city in the world. The subways and elevated’s enabled the northward expansion on the island of Manhattan, unified the five boroughs into one megalopolis, dispersed the population from the tip of Manhattan, sparked the development of the city’s first suburbs and eventually created the breeding ground for the high densities and skyscrapers, as we know them from today’s Manhattan. In a relatively short period of about 100 years, New York City grew from a small harbor town, to the largest metropolis in the world at that time. The Rapid Transit system forms an intricate part of this growth process. The four periods distinguished in the course of this research, each mark a distinct stage in the development of the system, but also in the becoming of the Metropolis. The direction and scale of the introduced system each time determined the step forward that could be taken by urban development. Therefore it is safe to say, that without its Rapid Transit system, New York City would have never become the metropolis as we know it now. Subject New York Cityrapid transitsubwayelevatedhistory To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d6aeb2ee-ed30-4a1d-9f4f-77e6c50cdba4 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights (c) 2009 Schreurs, P.H.M. Files PDF arc_schreurs_2009scriptie.pdf 11.09 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:d6aeb2ee-ed30-4a1d-9f4f-77e6c50cdba4/datastream/OBJ/view