The Measure of Manhattan

"""This intelligent and entirely riveting account of the brave young man who squared and sculpted Manhattan, and made famous its present street geometry, is every bit as groundbreaking a success as was his own work, two centuries before. Marguerite Holloway has uncovered in the life of John Randel Jr., a quite marvelous tale, and has told it just magnificently."" -- Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic and The Map That Changed the World ""[Holloway] deftly weaves surviving fragments of Randel's life ... with a 21st century scavenger hunt by modern geographers to find the physical markers of his work."" -- New York Times ""In gracefully efficient prose, Marguerite Holloway, who heads Columbia University's Science and Environmental Journalism program, gives the reader a vivid sense of the challenges facing Randel, the social context that informed his epic undertaking, and the will and ingenuity that he brought to the task...an enlightening ode to a man who made sense of a budding metropolis."" -- Kevin Canfield - The Daily Beast ""A far more intimate experience than going to the museum."" -- Village Voice ""The Measure of Manhattan offers a fascinating look at a forgotten episode in American history. Marguerite Holloway brings to life the man who in a very real way made New York what it is today."" -- Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes From a Catastrophe ""With the grid he laid down, John Randel Jr. transformed an island of 18th Century villages into the modern linear city-a mind-boggling achievement in ferociously meticulous surveying that reads, in The Measure of Manhattan, like a wilderness adventure, angry farmers standing in for the wild animals already hunted away. Marguerite Holloway's portrait of the surveyor's surveyor in his cartography-obsessed time shows us how much the physical city has changed and, most importantly, how much it hasn't."" -- Robert Sullivan, author of My American Revolution and Rats ""This outstanding history of the Manhattan grid offers us a strange archaeology: part spatial adventure, part technical expedition into the heart of measurement itself... Marguerite Holloway's engaging survey takes us step by step through the challenges of obsolete land laws and outdated maps of an earlier metropolis, looking for-and finding-the future shape of this immeasurable city."" -- Geoff Manaugh - BLDGBLOG"