Geography Notes

Maps

I used a number of atlases while writing The Gilded Hour. Columbia University has excellent list of extant maps with information on availability and access.

For the years 1879-1890 these maps were of interest to me:

1876

Cornell. Property atlas of the City of Yonkers, N.Y.: including a portion of the twenty fourth ward of New York City.
Avery Classics AA735 Y8 C815

1879

Bromley. Atlas of the entire city of New York.
Avery Classics AA9127 N4 B78 1879 F

Dripps. Map of Kings County, New York: based on the recent official survey showing new arrangement of boulevards, streets, railroads, etc.
Avery Classics AA735 N4B7 D83

1880

Bromley. Atlas of the entire city of Brooklyn, complete in one volume
NYPL Digital Gallery

Hopkins. Detailed estate and old farm line atlas of the city of Brooklyn (6v.)
Contents: v.1 Wards 23, 24 & 25–v.2 Ward 18–v.4 Wards 8 &22–v.5 Wards 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,11 & 12–v.6 Wards 13,14,15,16, 17 & 19
NYPL Digital Gallery

1881

Speilmann & Brush. Certified copies of original maps of property in New York City.
Avery Classics AA735 N4 Sp4 FF

1883-1888

Robinson & Pidgeon. Atlas of the city of New York (6v.) (2nd.ed.)
Contents: v.5 23rd Ward (1887)
NYPL Digital Gallery

1885

Robinson. Robinson’s atlas of the City of New York.
Atlas Shelving (Avery Rm 222) AA9127 N4 R561 FF

Robinson & Pidgeon. Atlas of the city of New York
NYPL Digital Gallery

1886

Robinson. Robinson’s atlas of the City of Brooklyn, New York
Atlas Shelving (Avery Rm 222): Avery AA9127 N4 R56 FF

Robinson. Robinson’s atlas of the City of Brooklyn, New York
NYPL Digital Gallery

1888-1897

Robinson. Certified copies of important maps appearing to the 23rd and 24th wards, city of New York
NYPL Digital Gallery

1890

Robinson. Robinson’s atlas of King’s County, New York [Brooklyn] NYPL Digital Gallery

The two maps that were most useful and most easily accessible for me:

1. The 1879 Atlas of New York City available to download (page by page) or study online davidrumsey.com.

2. Robinson’s Atlas of the city of New York (1885) is also available online, for no cost, at the New York Public Library.

The library has a guide on early real estate atlases of the city which can be found here.

Map Usefulness

The maps you’ll find in this wiki are from a variety of sources mentioned above as well as historical studies. Insurance and real estate maps are often not pretty to look at, but they are full of information if you take the time to look closely.

Neighborhoods

In organizing my research I have divided the city into neighborhoods based on precincts and distribution of populations as I interpret them on the basis of my reading. Neighborhoods overlap in several places.

NeighborhoodParameters
South Street/Fulton MarketExtending south along the East River docks below the Brooklyn Bridge to Battery Park
Old West SideFrom Battery Park north along the Hudson River docks to about Canal
Five Points/Chatham SquareFrom City Hall Park east to the river, extending north of the Brooklyn Bridge
Lower East Side Radiating out from Hester Street, in the 1880s this became the heart of the Jewish community.
Kleindeutschland (Little Germany) East of the Bowery from about Canal to 18th Street
East Village15th Street to Fifth Avenue to Clinton Place (Eighth Street) to Broadway to Houston Street to the East River (excepting Washington Square and the French Quarter)
Washington SquarePlus one block on all sides of the park; to the south-east of the park west of the Bowery and north of Clinton, what remained of the French Quarter
 West Village 14th Street to Fifth Avenue to Clinton Place to Broadway to Houston Street to the Hudson River (excepting Washington Square and the French Quarter)
 Tenderloin 25th to 45th Street west of Broadway
 Lexington 16th to 60th Street, east of  Fifth Avenue; a number of distinct neighborhoods are covered here, including Stuyvesant Square and Gramercy Park, and if stretched a bit, the Vanderbilt mansions on Fifth.
Upper East Side 60th to 110th Street, east of Central Park
Upper West Side 60th to 110th Street, west of Central Park
Brooklyn
Staten Island
New Jersey

Accuracy

Landmarks have been left where they were in 1883. I haven’t moved anything large in the service of the story; stores and businesses that are not fictional are right where I found them.  However, there is sometimes ambiguity in sources, and other time I simply get something wrong. Please let me know if you come across an error in geography.