Estate / Collection: Collection of a New York Surveyor

[MAP - MURRAY HILL and MIDTOWN EAST]
HOLMES, J[OHN] B [UTE]. Map of the "Murray Hill Farm," "Ogden Place Farm," Lawrence & Astor, Wiswall & Price, Corporation, Wm. Wright, John Taylor and Other Property. New York: A. Brown Lith., January 1867. First edition, separately published. Lithographed map on paper, hand colored, pink cloth border, old linen backing. Sheet measures 30 x 26 1/2 inches (76 x 67.75 cm). Light yet uneven toning and soiling, some spotting to lower margin and to linen backing, creasing with one minor spot of chipping along a crease.

This separately published map of Murray Hill and Midtown East covers the area from thirtieth to forty-fourth streets and from Broadway to Lexington Avenue. Today, this area contains some of the city's most desirable real estate, housing important landmarks like Grand Central Station and the Empire State Building. In this map, Holmes depicts the city as it was in 1867, including the Distributing Reservoir (now the site of the NYPL), the Harlem Rail Road tracks on Fourth (or Park) Avenue, and numerous clearly demarcated real estate lots. However, the map superimposes the city's historical details with contemporary ones, including old farm property lines, roads, houses, and even Sun Fish Pond (which had been filled in since 1839). Holmes published a series of maps that included both contemporary and historical details, and they all are quite scarce - we can locate only five copies of this map in institutional collections as per worldcat, and just one copy to have appeared at auction, in 1986, as per RareBookHub.