Estate / Collection: Collection of a New York Surveyor

[MAP - NEW YORK CITY]

SMITH, EDWIN; after FRANCIS P. VIDAL. A survey of properties on Jane and West 12th Streets, between Greenwich Avenue and West 4th Street. New York: copied by Smith on July 7th, 1826 after a survey by Vidal dated December 23rd, 1825. Manuscript survey map in ink on paper with lots colored yellow, with later annotations in pencil and surveyor's green crayon, laid down to modern linen backing with ink annotations to verso. 12 1/2 x 16 1/4 inches. Dust soiling mostly to the right edge, some old creases and tears, now flattened and closed when the map was laid down, later surveyor's annotations in pencil and green architect's grease pencil.

This 1825 manuscript survey map shows a group of properties in the West Village on Jane and West 12th (here called Cornelia) Streets between Greenwich Avenue (then Greenwich Lane) and West 4th (here called Asylum) Street. The map includes the names of four property owners, the dimensions of their lots, and the dimensions of eighteen mid-block lots, each with no recorded ownership.

For a short time in the mid-1820s, The Village had two Cornelia Streets. There was the one shown on this map, and the still extant, one-block-long street closer to Washington Square Park, now famous for the eponymous Taylor Swift song. In the years after this survey was drawn, the Cornelia Street on this map underwent multiple name changes, including Scott Street, Troy Street (by 1836), and Abingdon Place (1846), before finally becoming West 12th Street in 1859. Additionally, Asylum Street became West 4th Street in 1836 when the Orphan Asylum was moved uptown, and Greenwich Lane became Greenwich Avenue in 1843. The block shown in this map now houses a number of the neighborhood's culinary and nightlife destinations, including The Corner Bistro (in A Hall's lot), The Cubby Hole (in Michael Talley's lot), and Don Angie (in John Bloodgood's lot).