1869 Holmes Map of Little Italy, Nolita, and Soho, Manhattan, NYC

This is a John Bute Holmes 1869 cadastral map of modern day Little Italy and parts of the iconic neighborhoods of Nolita, Soho, and Chinatown in the borough of Manhattan in New York City - the only specific map of this area to appear in the 19th century. The map depicts the region from Broadway to Bowery and from Prince Street to Pell Street. Highly detailed, Holmes's map provides the viewer with a look at the neighborhood in 1869 and with an idea of how it developed. Streets area labeled, and Holmes provides both the former names of the streets and their current ones. Individual lots are identified by addresses, and those that fell victim to widening streets and a changing urban landscape are ghosted in using dashed lines.

Bayard's Farm

Bayard's farm initially belonged to Colonel Nicholas Bayard (c. 1644 - 1707), who served as the 16th Mayor of New York City, and was the nephew of Peter Stuyvesant, the colonial governor of New Netherland before it was ceded to the British and renamed New York. Bayard acquired the land at some point in the 17th century and his family maintained possession of most of the land until at least the early 19th century, when it was broken into lots and sold. Aaron Burr was among those who purchased some of the land.

Holmes' 'Farm Maps'

In the early 19th century most of Manhattan was undeveloped farm lands, the property of wealthy landowners with claims dating to the Dutch period of New York's history. The northern 2/3rd Manhattan was dotted with farm lands and sprawling gentlemanly estates, many with great manor houses overlooking the Hudson River. The Commissioner's Plan of 1811 and the 1807 Commission Law, laid the street grid through many of these properties and gave the city the right to claim these lands under eminent domain, providing due compensation to the landowners. While this work occurred early in lower Manhattan, central and upper Manhattan were not formally acquired by the city until the mid-19th century.

Holmes became fascinated by the early history of Manhattan real estate ownership, recognizing the wealth to be accrued by accurately understanding the history of city land ownership, division, and inheritance. Moreover, Holmes allied himself with the corrupt Tweed administration, assuring himself and his allies even greater wealth and political power from the eminent domain seizure of old Manhattan estates. Holmes created a series of maps, reminiscent of John Randall's 'Farm Maps', overlaid with property data, showing the borders of old estates, and notating the breakup of the lands among various heirs. The complex work of compiling the maps earned Holmes a fortune, with one newspaper suggesting on his death in 1887 that some of his individual maps were worth more than 30,000 USD. There is no complete carto-bibliography of Holmes' maps, but we believe there to be at least 50 maps, possibly more.

Provenance

This map was acquired as a part of a large collection of New York cadastral maps associated with the layer Ronald K. Brown, a Deed Commissioner operating in the late 19th and early 20th century with an office at 76 Nassau Street, New York - not far from Holmes' own office. Most of the maps in the collection, including the present map, bear Brown's stamp on the verso. The maps were passed to Dominic Anthony Trotta, a real estate agent working under Brown. Brown seems to have ceased business around 1919, but Trotta continued as a real estate agent, becoming a New York Tax Commissioner in 1934 under the Fiorello H. La Guardia administration. The maps remained with Trotta's heirs until our acquisition of the collection.

Publication History and Census

This map was created and published by John Bute Holmes in 1869. We are aware of three examples in institutional collections at Princeton, Harvard, and the New York State Library. Although uncatalogued, we believe that the New York Public Library also has an example.