Map New York and Brooklyn (1877)

This bird's eye view - from the waterfronts of Jersey City and Hoboken - shows the southern tip of Manhattan Island as it appeared at the end of the 19th century. The disproportionate scale highlights the ten hectares of Battery Park, Broadway, the Brooklyn Bridge (the first suspension bridge in the United States, then under construction), New York's first skyscrapers (the Equitable Life Building and the New York Tribune Building), and Central Park. Sailing ships and paddle-wheel and propeller steamers ply the Hudson River, reminding us that two-thirds of American imports and a quarter of American exports transited the piers of New York, which in 1880 had more than a million inhabitants.