Topographical Map of the City and County of New-York and the Adjacent Country

David H. Burr

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This proof impression includes the center of a large topographical map of Manhattan published in 1836 and encompasses the area between 19th and 133rd Streets, showing the City grid's rapid uptown advance. The cross streets are now fully graded and paved to about 23rd Street, and all traces of the original topography have been obliterated as far north as 30th Street and the beginnings of Murray Hill. The map depicts but does not highlight the uptown public squares that were so prominenet on the Commissioners' Plan. An unknown hand used a tan wash to delineate the boundaries of the future Central Park as it would be configured between 1853 and 1859.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art