1.jpg - A map describing the town of Mannados, or New Amsterdam, as it was in September 1661. Visible in the drawing is the wall at the northern end of the settlement, now known as Wall Street (Published in 1859). The wall can be seen in the middle of the picture running vertically separating the built up part of the city on the right-hand side with the rest of the island. 2.jpg - This hand-crafted illustration is a recreation of the Castello Plan, the oldest known known map of New York. Drawn by American illustrator James Wolcott Adams in 1916, the original was sold to Cosimo de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, around 1667 and 'rediscovered' 223 years later. 3.jpg - This illustration published in 1854 shows a 'Plan for the City of New York' when it was surveyed in 1767, nearly a decade before the start of the American revolution. 4.jpg - This map commissioned in 1776 depicts the 'seat of action between the British and American forces,' otherwise known as 'An Authentic Plan' and shows 'Staten Island, and the environs of New York'. 5.jpg - Commissioned in 1835, this illustration is called 'Map of the Country - Twenty Five Miles Round The City or (New York).' The map also encompasses parts of New Jersey. 6.jpg - Produced for the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, this map shows Manhattan from Forty-Second Street South to the Battery in exquisite detail and is still considered a masterpiece. 7.jpg - This survey shows the borough of Brooklyn in 1850 and includes the neighborhoods of 'Williamsburg and Township of Bushwick' as indicated on the left hand side of the map. 8.jpg - This illustration made in 1860 shows the 'Plan of the Central Park,' three years after the park was established in 1857 on 778 acres with construction beginning one year later. 9.jpg - Near the forefront of the atlas publication industry for a quarter century was mapmaker Alvin Jewitt Johnson, who commissioned this map of lower Manhattan and its surrounding environs in 1860. 10.jpg - The exhibit, titled 'Picturing the City,' shows the Big Apple's cartographic evolution and spans six centuries from 'Manhattan’s earliest days to lighthearted depictions in the future.' This exquisitely detailed map of Central Park dates back to 1863. 11.jpg - Created in 1865, this color coded map of 'New York and Vicinity' was published by Matthew Dripps whose office was located on 103 Fulton St. in Downtown Manhattan. 12.jpg - This map of New York City was published in 1885 and featured in 'The Illustrated London News'. 13.jpg - The exhibit also features the earliest known map of New York in existence commissioned during the 40 year period of Dutch rule between 1624 - 1664 (Map of Staten Island, 1889). 13.5.jpg - 1895 for New York, Bronx, Queens and Kings Counties, before the formation of Greater NYC in 1898. Then, Brooklyn was a separate city from New York City. You'll notice New Jersey cities on the western bank of the Hudson River, aka North River. Bordering today's eastern Bronx is part of Westchester County, NY then. l) Calvary Cemetery...Go NE up the East River then east up Newtown Creek. (The creek divides Brooklyn and Queens.) See Blissville? That's Woodside today. Just right of that is "Penny Bridge." From 1848 to 1854 Archbishop Hughes chartered two steamboats to carry funeral processions from the East 23rd Street Pier in Manhattan to Calvary's landing by Penny Bridge. Later the Greenpoint Ferry Service ran a similar service from East 10th Street in Manhattan. Circa 1880, my Roman Catholic ancestors who died in New Jersey, were transported by ferries from designated NJ piers, south on the Hudson River, around the tip of Manhattan, then up the East River to family plots at Calvary. 2) East River & Islands...Again, up the East River, you'll see Blackwell's, Ward's, then Randall's Islands. All three islands, in addition to Hart and Rikers Islands, housed public institutions and military installations over time. Perhaps you've found some ancestors residing there. A bit east, you'll see North Brother Island made famous by the sinking of the General Slocum excursion ship on June 15, 1904. The Slocum disaster was the largest loss of human life in NYC, preceding the World Trade Center attack on 11 September 2001, and prompted the German-American community to relocate from the Lower East Side north to the Yorkville section of Manhattan. Hart Island is best known today as "city cemetery," the potter's field of NYC since the U.S. Civil War. Over a million are interred in mass graves at Hart. If your a "Law and Order" fan, you've heard of Rikers as home to NYC's infamous penitentiary. In 1932, prisoners were relocated from Blackwell Island's prison to Rikers, when Blackwell's closed. 3) Docks & Ferries & Trains...Back to my original 1895 map...We'd be remiss to exclude the preponderance of docks and ferry and train routes indicated on this map. Armed with notes from Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank and a similar ferry map ca. 1865, I tracked our Danny O'CONNELL from Orchard Street in Manhattan to St. Peter's Church in Staten Island where my g-grandmother was baptized! It was one of my most exciting finds for our famine-era Danny who arrived at Castle Garden in 1849, age 12, sans parents. 14.jpg - A supplement featured in the Evening Post, this 'Map of the Borough of Manhattan' was printed in 1897. 15.jpg - This map was printed at the turn of the century in 1901 and shows a zoomed in view of the southern part of Manhattan on the right. 16.jpg - 'Transformation of the Borough': Titled 'The Brooklyn of the Future,' this survey was commissioned in 1903 and appears to tout major infrastructure projects in the area designed to connect it with the rest of the city. 17.jpg - Illustrated six years before his death, German-born artist Henry Wellge made this bird's eye view panorama of New York in 1911. 18.jpg - This exquisite map completed in 1915 shows The Bronx River Parkway, known as the first 'open landscaped highway” in the nation, and the linear 'reservation' surrounding it. 19.jpg - Map of the borough of Manhattan and part of the Bronx showing location and extent of racial colonies, 1920. 20.jpg - Drawn by C.E. Millard in 1933, this map shows the 'modern metropolis in the making, pictorially presented for the man who learns by looking.' This illustration is packed with whimsical figures, with pictorial insets to help viewers. 21.jpg - Created in 1946, this sight-seers' map of Manhattan shows the best of the Big Apple, showing the Rockettes towering over the ice skaters at Rockefeller Center, a Yankee pitcher facing off against a Giants batter, along with a list of places to take a date out in the city. Islands.jpg - Shows some islands near Manhattan.