fire insurance atlases

You might remember from previous posts, that the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division has been busy digitizing our historical map collections, with a strong focus on New York City fire insurance maps. We’ve added some excellent new titles (about 500 maps total) to that collection in recent months detailing Queens and Brooklyn from the early 20th century. The example below is from E. Belcher Hyde’s Atlas of the Borough of Brooklyn, Vol. 7., 1907. This map shows an early Luna Park, Coney Island’s famous amusement park, just four years after it opened to the public, which itself was built on the site of the former Sea Lion Park, home of the world’s first looping roller coaster. And you thought the Cyclone was scary.

We've updated the Map Division's Google Earth index to digitized NYC map collections to include more than 2000 maps from 32 titles, organized chronologically and geographically (by borough), all published between 1852 and 1923. The map index requires installation of Google Earth on your computer.

There are three recommended ways to search for maps using this tool.

1. Select a borough and vintage using the folders from the list on the left sidebar.

2. Double click the map to fly to your chosen location, then use the time slider at the top left of the map frame to narrow the chronological search scope.

3. Enter a street address in the "fly to" search box, then use the time slider.

Once you've located a historical map coverage, scroll your mouse over the area and click. A popup window will allow you to access bibliographic information and a digital copy of the historical map. Happy surfing.

On today's map you wouldn't have a clue as to where the Crystal Palace at Reservoir Square was located. Looking at a William Perris' fire insurance map from 1853 however reveals that, where now stands our magnificent central library on the corner of 5th Avenue & 42nd Street, once stood the huge Croton distributing reservoir, gravity feeding the thirsty city from near the top of Murray Hill and a spectacular Crystal Palace, seen here as the large purple shape on the top left.

You can see both the reservoir and the Crystal Palace here.

An even closer look reveals a handwritten note reading "50,000". This is a fire insurance map which probably means that the fire insurance policy taken out for the Crystal Palace was $50,000 or about $1.5 million in today's dollars.

That seems like a shockingly low price for such a spectacular building.

Especially considering the fact that in 1858 it burned to the ground.

The story goes that the morning after the fire, in typical New York City fashion, street hawkers were selling still warm pieces of the melted Crystal Palace.

We've digitized more historical maps documenting the changing New York City landscape. Follow the link to a comprehensive listing of close to 2,700 maps showing buildings, old streets, farm lines, streetcar routes historical shorelines and more.

Here's a small section from G.M. Hopkins' 1880 Farm Line Atlas of Brooklyn.