John Reps: How Gotham Got Its Grid: The Inside Story of Manhattan's City Plan

As Dr. John Reps celebrates his 90th birthday, join us for his lecture and reception that will immediately follow.

John Reps is a historian of urban planning and an authority on American urban iconography. His book, The Making of Urban America (1965), was followed by five books exploring in more detail the origin and subsequent growth of towns and cities in the southeast and west. He has also written another half-dozen studies about 19th-century printed views of American cities, identifying the artists who created them, and explaining how they were drawn, printed, published, sold, and used.

Reps headed the CRP program from 1951–64. In 1996, citing him as the father of modern American city planning history, the American Planning Association designated him a Planning Pioneer. In 1985 the University of Nebraska conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts and Letters. Earlier that year the University of Georgia appointed him one of six Bicentennial Distinguished Visiting Professors. In 1984 the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning recognized him with its biennial award for Distinguished Service to Education in Planning.