Bernard Ratzer’s plan of New York

“Perhaps the finest map of an American city and its environs produced in the eighteenth century” (Augustyn).

The new plan, first published in 1770, lays out a city of about 25,000 inhabitants and its surrounding farmland. It offers a remarkably accurate view of the streets of lower Manhattan and depicts the farms, roads and topography reaching to approximately present day 50th Street; along with the marshy New Jersey shores of the Hudson; Kennedy, Bucking and Governors Islands; and parts of present day Brooklyn along the East River. The map is paired with an idyllic panoramic view of the city from Governors Island.