Today Manhattan has over 60,000 buildings
As Lenta.ru writes, according to international broker Tranio, in 2014, 33 apartments were sold in Manhattan for more than 25 million dollars each. Additionally, there are individual listings whose price exceeds 100 million dollars.
Manhattan, whose area is comparable to the Central District of Moscow, has over 60,000 buildings. All this wealth has specific owners: local real estate, besides ordinary individuals, belongs to the state, the church, universities, large family companies, and developers.
"Once upon a time, several Dutchmen bought the island from the Indians for a handful of beads, and thanks to these 'glass beads,' ferries, skyscrapers, Wall Street, electricity, newspapers, Ellis Island, the New York Yankees, Central Park, the first World's Fair, Broadway, the Chrysler Building, and Studio 54 appeared here," says the film Sex and the City 2. Manhattan, where today real estate is sold at an average price of 14 thousand dollars per square meter, was bought in 1626 by Dutchman Peter Minuit from the Manahatta tribe for 60 guilders and named New Amsterdam. The purchase amount is often equated to 24 dollars, but this estimate was made in the 19th century and is therefore outdated. Today's equivalent is about one thousand dollars.
The Indians do not forget that America belonged to them before the arrival of Europeans. In 2010, the native Lenape and Cherokee tribes sued the state of New Jersey demanding the return of property rights to Manhattan, Hudson (New Jersey), Delaware, and eastern Pennsylvania. Such litigation is not an isolated case, but lawyers consider such cases hopeless.
In 1664, New Amsterdam was captured by the English, after which the city was renamed New York in honor of the initiator of the capture, the Duke of York. Three years later, the Dutch officially handed New York over to the English in exchange for the South American colony of Suriname. From 1667 to 1776 (before independence was declared), New York was owned by the British Crown. It was on its behalf that orders were given to transfer land to one person or another. Thus, several estates formed in Manhattan, plots were divided and sold. The same gradually happened with lands belonging to Dutch settlers.
Nevertheless, the Dutch did not lose hope of regaining control over the lost territories. In 1792–1793, the Holland Land Company, a syndicate of 13 Amsterdam investors, acquired 13,150 square kilometers in western New York State. Members of the Holland Land Company never were in America: foreigners were forbidden to buy land in the United States, so the deal was made through the mediation of trusted persons. The syndicate was dissolved in the 1840s, and by then its lands had been sold off to local investors and settlers.
At the beginning of the 19th century, most of the 96,000 residents of New York City huddled on the southern tip of Manhattan. The main transport artery of the island was not Broadway or Fifth Avenue, but the dirt road Boston Post Road. The area north of today's Canal Street, which separates SoHo and TriBeCa, was divided into large estates. Most of Manhattan, by modern standards, was a simple village and did not at all resemble the overcrowded, skyscraper-filled island we see today.
New York's population grew, and in 1811 the authorities adopted a replanning plan to provide more housing for the population. The grid of avenues and intersecting streets at right angles became the basis of Manhattan's development. Many previously built buildings remained untouched, and if any were to be demolished, owners were compensated. As a result of the plan's implementation, many landowners lost their spacious estates.
Among the owners was Clement Clarke Moore, a poet and professor of Oriental and Greek literature – he owned the estate 'Chelsea,' after which the current Manhattan neighborhood is named. Moore had so much land that it could fit six city blocks. At first, along with other landowners, he protested against the development plan, but eventually he accepted the master plan because he realized he would get a lot of money in return. And Moore began to divide the estate into parts and sell them off for development to wealthy New Yorkers.
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MANHATTAN: BETWEEN CHURCH AND UNIVERSITIES