Antique Plan of New York, Manhattan and Brooklyn, with Broadway View, 1847

About this sheet

This is an original antique city plan of New York, steel engraved and published in the atlas of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Lower Manhattan is drawn block by block from the Battery and Castle Clinton up through the grid to the open ground above Murray Hill, with the City of Brooklyn and Williamsburgh across the East River and Jersey City across the Hudson. Governors Island and Ellis or Bucking Island are marked in the harbor, forty public buildings are numbered and keyed, and two vignettes show Broadway from the Park and the City Hall. The outline and water coloring is original hand color, applied by the publisher before the sheet was bound into the volume.

The sheet is plate number 194 in the third volume of the Society's atlas, Plans of Cities, Stars and Index to Places, published in London by Charles Knight at 22 Ludgate Street in 1847. The Society issued its maps in parts from 1829 onward, and this collected edition was lettered as a new edition corrected to the present time, which is why individual plates still carry their own earlier dates.

This is New York before the Civil War, before Central Park and before the Brooklyn Bridge, with the northern half of Manhattan still shown as surveyed grid over empty land. Among the American sheets in this English series, the New York plan stands out for its harbor islands and street level vignettes. Framed simply in dark wood or a plain gilt frame it suits a study, a hallway or a dining room, and it is a natural gift for anyone with a tie to the place.

Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the bottom, left and right edges. All four corners complete.

This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.