The numbered street grid in Manhattan was laid out at the beginning of the 19th century. The reason there are so many streets and so few avenues was to facilit

The numbered street grid in Manhattan was laid out at the beginning of the 19th century. The reason there are so many streets and so few avenues was to facilitate river-to-river movement of freight. The reason for the standardized grid was to make land development more predictable (it's also called the speculative grid for that reason).