Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
If you know where to look in Central Park, you can touch a piece of NYC's civil engineering history.
It's one of the last remaining survey bolts from John Randel Jr.'s Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which laid out the original plan for Manhattan's street grid above 14th Street.
About this series: @foundedbynyc Object Lessons explores historically significant and/or groundbreaking items that tourists can see when they visit. It’s part of NYC Tourism’s commemoration of New York City’s 400th anniversary this year. #NYC400
Video description: This POV video is shot on a rocky hillside in Central Park, with host John Friia sitting on a large exposed patch of Manhattan schist with an iron spike hammered into it.
If you know where to look in Central Park, you can touch a piece of NYC's civil engineering history.
It's one of the last remaining survey bolts from John Randel Jr.'s Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which laid out the original plan for Manhattan's street grid above 14th Street.
About this series: @foundedbynyc Object Lessons explores historically significant and/or groundbreaking items that tourists can see when they visit. It’s part of NYC Tourism’s commemoration of New York City’s 400th anniversary this year. #NYC400
Video description: This POV video is shot on a rocky hillside in Central Park, with host John Friia sitting on a large exposed patch of Manhattan schist with an iron spike hammered into it.
