The Evolution Of Tenement Limited By The Grid Of New York City

Single family house is the first residence form in the most parts of the United States, but not suit for New York. Many people choose to share the space with many other families in New York. This situation can reach back to the early nineteenth century, when the city began its process of urbanization. Tenement, a new type of residence, was called out by the housing crisis in the early nineteenth century, meanly built for the poor families and the immigrants, then formed a Stable type and widely copied in the late19th century, and became acceptable by most people include the middle-class and the wealthy.The birth and growth of the tenement house is direct influenced by the grid planning system of New York, which had been established almost at the same time. Because of the grid, the outline of tenement house had been fixed by size of every single lot. Tenement is limited by lot, while react up on it. The process of the tenement evolution reflected the tireless efforts of reformers and architects, also is the epitome of America’s housing reform and urbanization.There are many researches focuses on policy and legislation but few do this on the urban and architecture currently in our country. And it is necessary to conduct research from the point of view of architectural. The paper is going to take the tenement as the study subject, trying to offer a comparative analysis of the evolution process about the building type of tenement.This paper is divided into five chapters, first chapter is to clear areas of study, and explain the concepts. Chapter two is for the social background, and then analyzed the formation of the New York grid system and the effects to tenement construction in chapter three. The next chapter is why and how did the tenement house evolved, and summarize the whole paper in the last chapter.