This month’s featured map is from the Gazzettiere Americano, an atlas published in Livorno, Italy in 1763. The map shows New York Harbor and surrounding areas, and includes a number of Brooklyn references. If you look closely, you will see the following names on the Brooklyn area of the map: Bushwick, Brockland, Redhook, Flatland, Flatbush, Gravesend, Utrecht, and Coney Isola. The small numbers on the map are called soundings and they represent water depths. Soundings were commonly featured on early nautical charts and maps and are still used today in navigation.

Porti della Nuova York e Perthamboy. Giuseppe Maria Terreni. ca. 1763. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

(Click on the image to see more detail)

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.

Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.

This month’s featured map dates from 1828 and features the “country thirty miles round the city of New York,” including all five boroughs as well as portions of New Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut. Drawn by J.H. Eddy of New York, this map is a new edition with edits by William Hooker and E. Blunt. While the map shows traditional elements such as roads, topography, and names of landowners (including the Lefferts, Cortelyou, and Vanderveer families in Brooklyn), it also shows more unusual things like taverns. The map appears to have been dedicated to Dewitt Clinton, Governor of New York, who died the same year the map was published.

Map of the country thirty miles round the city of New York. John H. Eddy. 1828. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Click here to see detail of the Brooklyn section of the map.

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.

Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.

This month’s featured map was created by the Ohman Map Co., a New York-based map company located at 258 Broadway,  in the early 1900s. One of only a handful of maps in the BHS Collection to show ethnic communities in Brooklyn, it features various groups, from Europeans to African Americans to people of mixed heritage. It is clear from this map that early 20th century Brooklyn was a diverse community of people, just as it is today.

Map of the borough of Brooklyn : showing location and extent of racial colonies. Ohman Map Co. Inc. ca. 1920. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Click here to view the map key.

Click here to view detail from the map (Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant).

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.

Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.

This month’s featured map was created by the prolific Brooklyn surveyor Teunis G. Bergen, who copied it from an “ancient map.” According to Bergen, there was no date or surveyor’s name on the “ancient map,” but it was probably made before 1750. The map roughly covers modern-day Brooklyn Heights south to the Gowanus and shows buildings and names of landowners. Please note that any writing on the map with an asterisk was added by Bergen and not found on the original map. If you’re interested in learning more about Bergen, the BHS archive has an amazing collection of his writings and maps.

Copy of an ancient map in possession of a descendant of the Hannes or Hans Bergen: whose house is located thereon. Teunis Bergen. 1864. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

(Click on the image to show more detail)

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.

Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.