From Industry to Global Office Space
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The Great Depression of the 1930s and the advent of War World Two once again transformed Lower Manhattan, this time from a place for commerce and industry to a global financial hub.
"The newer industrial plants, including defense-related ones such as aircraft, were much more likely to be located on the peripheries of the built-up urban areas, not only because their larger scale required more space than was available closer in, but also because it was the systematic policy of the War Production Board to decentralize factories to protect them from wholesale bombing. The decentralization did not initiate a new trend, but rather intensified one that had been observed as early as Pratt's 1911 survey and was certainly becoming more evident in the 1930s. Deindustrialization in New York was already well under way." --Janet L. Abu-Lughod New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America's Global Cities, 1999. |
Lower Manhattan 1937 |
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This period also highlights the emergence of public-private partnerships between the real estate developers and government. Such partnerships accelerated further building of skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan.
"The whole transformation. Its progress from diversity to the office building monoculture of downtown was not a simple response to market forces. The twin towers of the World Trade Center, the South Street seaport, Battery Park City, etc., weren't put there by the world market. |
Lower Manhattan 1930s |
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They were all built by government - the state; the city; or various authorities which were created by government." --Robert Fitch, The Assassination of New York, 1993. |
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On this map, only the red buildings were there before 1945.
