Before city officials proposed their plan in 1811 for an unbroken grid to organize Manhattan, the streets were a jumbled mess. In City on a Grid: How New York Became New York, author Gerard Koeppel tells the fascinating history of the urban planning that created the grid and how it’s shaped city life in the centuries since.

Event: Gerard Koeppel will be speaking and signing books at the New York Public Library Mid-Manhattan Branch (455 Fifth Avenue), on January 25th at 6:30 p.m. and he will be speaking and signing books at the Skyscraper Museum (39 Battery Place) on January 26th at 6:30 p.m.