Marguerite Holloway

Marguerite Holloway tells the story of an unrecognized, 19th-century genius who plotted Manhattan’s famous city grid, John Randel Jr., an eccentric and flamboyant surveyor who created surveying devices, designed an early elevated subway, and laid out a controversial alternative route for the Erie Canal—winning him admirers and enemies. In The Measure of Manhattan, Holloway explores the science and symbolism of surveying, and tells how Randall went about “gridding” what was then an undeveloped, hilly island.