Estate / Collection: Collection of a New York Surveyor

[MAP - NEW YORK CITY]

WINDWART, DR. HEINRICH. Map of Delancy Farm, "Eastern Part." Lying in the present 11th and 13th wards... New York: J. B. Beers & Co., 1880. Hand-colored lithograph on two sheets joined, laid down on linen with a pink cloth border at the top and bottom edges. The sheet measures 46 x 36 1/2 inches. Light uneven toning, creasing, right edge worn with chips and tears, left edge trimmed inside the neatline, the map has been kept rolled, manuscript annotations to verso, sold as is.

A rare, separately published map of the Lower East Side in Manhattan, here referred to as "Delancy Farm" after the estate's original, pre-Revolutionary War, owners. The map shows the late nineteenth-century city superimposed with an even older New York. For example, it shows both the waterfront's piers, as they were in 1880, and the East River's original high and low watermarks. The main purpose of this map, however, is to record changes in property ownership over time, illustrating how estates and plots were subdivided as the city was laid out and developed. Dr. Windwart and his contemporary, John Bute Holmes, both produced maps of this kind, focused on property ownership and the interaction of the old and the new New York City. No examples of this map have been sold at auction per RareBookHub; WorldCat locates only three examples in libraries.