Estate / Collection: Collection of a New York Surveyor

[MAP - NEW YORK CITY]

Map of the intersection of Canal and Spring Streets, with parts of West, Washington, and Greenwich Streets, now the location of the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Not signed or dated but circa 1825. Manuscript survey map in ink on paper, laid down to modern linen, with a photographic reproduction printed in negative of another manuscript survey map, signed by Edwin Smith titled Canal Street Market and showing the same area, laid down to the linen's verso. 17 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches (44 x 54 cm). Uneven dust soiling and light toning, a few faint stains, losses at margins, closed marginal tears, flattened creases, later pencil annotations.

A fascinating manuscript survey map of New York City relating to an early nineteenth-century proposed public works project. The map shows the intersection of Spring and Canal Streets near the bank of the Hudson River, and portions of West, Washington, and Greenwich Streets. It also features the Public Basin located at Spring Street in the Hudson River, the discharge point of the city's first sewer, and the original location of Clinton Market near the intersection of Spring and Greenwich Streets. The market would have faced The Ear Inn, established in 1817, now the city's oldest continuously operating bar. This area is now the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

The public works project that this map outlines is twofold. First, it includes a new "proposed basin" adjacent to the extant "public basin," which would have allowed for more goods to be unloaded into this rapidly growing commercial neighborhood. Second, the map proposes rerouting the Canal Street sewer to the south pier of the "proposed basin" and extending the sewer's discharge point further out in the Hudson River. It is not clear if either part of this proposal was completed.

In 1803, The Common Council decided to drain the overly polluted Collect Pond and its surrounding marshlands by building a canal to the Hudson River. However, the canal did not have sufficient flow, and it soon became a stinking open-air cesspit. The ditch was covered over in 1819, becoming the city's first sewer, and Canal Street was built above it in 1820. However, the sewer had no air traps, so the stench persisted. This survey map appears to show an early attempt to rectify this problem by building a pier that would extend the sewer's discharge point out into the Hudson River, further away from the shoreline and the people who lived there.