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COMMERCE AND THE URBAN STREETSCAPE
NEW YORK CITY STREETSCAPE
New York, New York, USA
designers/architects unknown
ca. 1900
In the later part of the nineteenth century, the
urban streetscape started to transform itself
due to the effects and outcome of the indus-
trialized world. The heights of buildings grew
taller and taller; telegraph and telephone wires
crisscrossed thoroughfares, creating weblike
patterns overhead; and commerce expanded
at an accelerated rate, thereby increasing the
number of advertising and promotional signs
evident on any given city street. All of these
modern developments added to the visual
chaos of the new urban streetscape. ...