Figure: Skyscraper Locations 1890 to 1915.

The maps show the location of all skyscrapers (buildings 262 feet or taller) that were constructed during their first generation. Except for the tower of Madison Square (1890), all tall building were constructed in lower Manhattan before the 20th century. Then, suddenly, starting in 1902, there was a “jump” where skyscraper completions were evenly divided between downtown and midtown. The graphs strongly suggest that around the turn of the 20th century, there was a tipping point, where developers saw opportunities north of 14th Street that did not exist in the decade prior, despite the fact that nothing had changed in the neighborhood around Grand Central Station, which would not be rebuilt and completed until 1913. Source: Barr, Tassier and Trendafilov (2010).

Figure: The residential locations of FIRE and Corporate Service Workers from 1861 to 1906.

These maps show the northward residential movement of different samples of workers employed in the finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector, or who are corporate executives. In all four periods, employment locations remained largely downtown. However, over the 19th century there was significant northward movement of this population. In 1861 the vast majority were living in the area between Houston and 23rd Streets. By 1906, the vast majority of these workers were living on the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side, hugging Central and Riverside Parks. Source: Barr and Tassier (2015).