The
Commissioners' Plan of 1811, regarded as the single most important document in New York City's development, was a major effort to optimize and maximize the city's real estate. The plan created 155 streets and 12 Avenues intersecting at right angles leaving out alleys by design. The plan gave the commission
eminent domain: the power to force existing land owners to sell any land the commission needed in order to build their design. Roughly 40 percent of all existing buildings were destroyed to make way for the new grid. In return for their losses, the commission omitted alleys on the land that remained, so that the land owners could provide and profit from more housing and commercial units. Today, most of the only remaining alleys left in New York City are located in lower Manhattan south of Canal Street. Cortlandt Alley was laid out in 1817, six years after the commissioner's plan. Filmmakers often use Cortlandt Alley as backdrop to shoot crime-related scenes. To make the alley seem more dangerous, dingy and shady, film crews have sometimes pasted papers on the walls, staged bags of garbage on the sides, and purposely dirtied the environment. ==Filming location==