About the Atlas
Mapping Historical New York: A Digital Atlas visualizes Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s transformations during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Drawing on 1850, 1880, and 1910 census data, it shows how migration, residential, and occupational patterns shaped the city.
The Digital Atlas breaks new ground by locating each person counted in the Census at their home address, sometimes before the street grid was even established. To do this work we used preserved historical maps and city directories, and even traced census takers’ steps, to locate residences. The Atlas is a living project that will expand to include all five boroughs up to the 1940 census.
We invite you to use the website’s interactive features to map and visualize the residential geographies of New Yorkers and Brooklynites by their race, gender, place of birth, and occupation across the years. You can zoom in and out to view the whole city, neighborhoods, or individual buildings. You will discover spatial patterns and trends that would be impossible to grasp by looking at census records alone.
There are many histories of New York that may be found in the maps. The Digital Atlas includes a few case studies to show how selected data may be visualized to tell a story. We invite you to create your own.
Those interested in more in-depth research and alternate methods of visualizing data may access the digital layers and underlying data of the assembled maps.
The Digital Atlas is based on historical maps that capture the layout of the city at three moments in time. The maps were drawn according to prevailing methods of marking and organizing space, such as the private ownership of land and buildings, streets and rail lines to facilitate human mobility and commerce, construction of tenements and apartment buildings, and the city’s “grid” design, planned in 1811 as a vision of urban order. From 1850 to 1880 to 1910, enormous changes took place across the city as farming gave way to industry, new housing and zoning patterns reorganized everyday life, and mass immigration from Europe diversified the population. Brooklyn was a separate city until it incorporated into New York City in 1898.
The maps also contain traces of older histories. Broadway was built over the Wickquasgeck Trail used by indigenous Lenape people until the 17th century to connect Manahatta to what we now call upstate New York. In Brooklyn, old Native American trails became major streets. One can trace the movement of Black people after slavery was abolished in New York in 1827. As late as 1910, the street grid in Brooklyn bumped up against remaining farmlands.
Data
The maps use 6.5 million unique census records for 1850, 1880, and 1910, matched to home locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, available from contemporary fire insurance atlases. Early census records often do not record specific street addresses. For 1850, we relied on city directories (which include names, occupations, and addresses) and tracked the paths walked by census takers.
For more information, see Documentation
Team
This project is the result of a multi-year interdisciplinary collaboration between Columbia University’s Department of History and the Center for Spatial Research at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation.
Project Staff:
Dan Miller, Project Lead, Senior Research Associate at the Center for Spatial Research, GSAPP
Miller specializes in mapping, visualization, and the application of critical GIS methods to research in the humanities. He leads design and data analysis work on the Mapping Historical New York project.
Co-Principal Investigators:
Gergely Baics, Associate Professor of History and Urban Studies, Helman Faculty Chair of Urban Studies, Barnard College
Rebecca Kobrin, Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History, Columbia University
Laura Kurgan, Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Director, Center for Spatial Research, Columbia University
Leah Meisterlin, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
Mae Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History, Columbia University, Team leader
Former Project Staff:
Wright Kennedy
Guangyu Tim Wu
Zoe Lin
Dare Brawley
Current Research Assistants:
Atsede Adinew Assayehgen
Sarah Baybeck
Nick Chimicles
Steven Dela Cruz Duncan
Meaghan Jungels
Former Research Assistants:
Laila Abed
Ethan Abelar
Yasemin Akcaguner
Conor Allerton
Francesca Cavuot
Madeleine Cesaretti
Yifei Chen
Zirui Chen
Ella Coon
Sumer Drall
Rachel Eu
Cameron Foltz
Max Goldner
Emily Gao
Olivia Huang
Yu-Chen Huang
Jack Hietpas
Jack Hjerpe
Amanda Hardin
Hritik Jain
Bo Panchanok Jumrustanasan
Sally Kaye
Gerald Lee
Maddy Liberman
Charlotte Zihao Li
Victoria Sun Li
Yuelin Li
Didier Lucceus
Jolene Lim
Benjamin Maltz
Amelia Marcantonio-Fields
Jayron Sara Mardani
Rachel Xuerui Michelson
Sally Kaye
Gerald Lee
Maddy Liberman
Charlotte Zihao Li
Victoria Sun Li
Yuelin Li
Didier Lucceus
Jolene Lim
Benjamin Maltz
Amelia Marcantonio-Fields
Jayron Sara Mardani
Rachel Xuerui Michelson
Amogh Mishra
Sofia Montrone
Andre O'Quinn
Sushant Surendra Prabhu
Naishadh Nimesh Parmar
Ethan Rankin
Julia Ross
Colette Rosenberg
Priya Sagar
Joshua Schwartz
Nikita Shepard
Giselle Silla
Tabitha Sugumar
Jenna Swartz
Stacy Tao
Cindy Tsang
Martijn Veenendaal
Clinton Wong
Chang Xu
Haiqing Xu
Wei Xao
Kun Yao
Bailey Yellen
Claire Jiaying Zhang
Myles Zhang
Web Development and Design by Stamen:
Eric Brelsford, Lead Design Technologist
Kelsey Taylor, Senior Technical Cartographer
D. Vinay Dixit, Director of Client Services
Nicolette Hayes, Design Director
Inhye Lee, Design Technologist
Bernardo Loureiro, Design Technologist
Eric Rodenbeck, Founder and Creative Director
Funders
Funding for this project is provided by the Robert D. L. Gardiner Foundation. The mission of the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation is to educate, cultivate and sponsor projects that further Robert Gardiner’s personal passion for New York history.
How to Cite the Atlas
Gergely Baics, Wright Kennedy, Rebecca Kobrin, Laura Kurgan, Leah Meisterlin, Dan Miller, Mae Ngai. Mapping Historical New York: A Digital Atlas. New York, NY: Columbia University. 2021. https://mappinghny.com