1911 / 1930 T. Kennard Thomson Maps proposing New Manhattan Landfill

This is a bold and futuristic 1911 - 1931 proposal to transform Manhattan with a landfill extending 8 miles into New York Harbor by T. Kennard Thomson, one of the founding fathers of American structural engineering and a pioneer of the Skyscraper Age. These two maps comprehend the first and last iteration of Kennard Thomson's 'New Manhattan': a preliminary partial manuscript plan dating to March 22, 1911 (predating the official release of the proposal in May) and the final 1930 iteration, in full manuscript.

New Manhattan: A Practical Vision

Early 20th-century Manhattan faced many of the same challenges as today - limited space, soaring real estate values, and overpopulation. In the spirit of the age, which saw the completion of even more massive engineering projects, like the Panama Canal, and similar land reclamation feats in both New York and Boston, Thomson's proposal was not only feasible but practical.

Despite its futuristic feel, New Manhattan was no crackpot fantasy of a maverick visionary. Kennard Thomson was a highly respected engineer who pioneered innovations in pneumatic caissons, worked on countless major urban infrastructure projects, and spoke before the American Society of Civil Engineers.

While New Manhattan may seem far-fetched by modern standards, Thomson was born into an age of monumental engineering achievements. He was deeply inspired by the Panama Canal, perhaps the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century, which was nearing completion even as Thomson's proposals for New Manhattan hit the presses. New York and Boston had already completed major landfill projects, including the East River Reclamation and the Back Bay. Thomson's father, William Alexander Thomson (1816 - 1878), pushed the Southern Canadian Railroad through the impenetrable Canadian Rockies. Thomson himself participated in the transformation of the cityscape as a pioneering engineer of the early Skyscraper Era.

And so, his proposal for a series of massive landfill projects in New York was met with awe, yes, but also practical optimism - they could be achieved. Thomson's professional and political influence, combined with a global appetite for great works, attracted national media attention. Intellectual luminaries, among them Thomas Edison, issued statements in support of the bold vision. Consequently, New Manhattan was seriously considered by the city Board of Estimates from 1918 to 1921.

In the end, it was not unfeasibility that stymied New Manhattan, but rather politics and greed. Thomson and his supporters promoted New Manhattan as a private development but nonetheless needed both city and state approval. Pushing the work and, therefore, profits into private hands, sidelined government officials, themselves eager for credit and a share of the spoils. Thomson wrote to New York Governor Nathan Miller (1868 - 1953), 'The Manhattan Extension Plan will be carried out by a people's corporation and not by a municipality. It will be financed by baby bonds and the people themselves will own the equity in the new section'. This caused the New York Sun to smell scandal, 'If [the City] wants about four more square miles of territory…then, says T. Kennard Thomson, all New York City has to do is to give 200 businessmen whom Mr. Thomson will not name the necessary rights to do the work proposed'. With the media and popular opinion turning against the plan, neither the city nor the state could pass it. By 1930, the Great Depression (1929 - 1939) had reached its lowest point. Although he might have successfully argued the project to the New Deal, his focus on keeping it a private enterprise ultimately brought it to a close.

Nonetheless! The idea of New Manhattan has recently been resurrected by Rutger's urban economist Jason Barr as 'New Mannahatta'. Bar made the proposal via an op-ed in the January 14, 2022 New York Times.

A Closer Look - the 1911 Plan

The upper plan, drawn by Kennard Thomson in March 1911 for presentation at the Architectural and Allied Arts Exhibition, is the earliest iteration of New Manhattan. For this map, Kennard Thomson repurposed a c. 1886 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Map of New York and Vicinity, to which he added the proposed extension, reaching far into New York Harbor and incorporating Governor's Island.

The scope of the map also allows him to illustrate his plan for a new subway, two 4-track circle lines embracing Manhattan, New Manhattan, and Staten Island. Thomson saw Staten Island as remote and underutilized but believed his project would re-center New York City business, shipping, and industry into New Manhattan and thus bring both Staten Island and Brooklyn more firmly into the urban fold.

A Closer Look - the 1930 Plan

Kennard Thomson's New Manhattan received immediate press attention and was seriously debated by New York City offices. As part of the review process, it went through a series of iterations, sometimes expanding and other times contracting. The progression is difficult to follow, given the scarcity of Kennard's original work, but it can be traced by following newspaper articles between 1911 and 1930. This final proposal, in full manuscript on linen, recommends an even longer, if more geometrically uniform, reclamation zone.

It also revises Kennard Thomson's proposed 1911 public transportation system. By the late 1920s, the Automobile Age had taken hold, transforming the American cityscape. Within a decade, the urban planner and power broker Robert Moses (1888 - 1981) began to exert an outsized influence, favoring highways and tunnels over trains, subways, and other public transport. Moses and Kennard Thomson traveled in overlapping social circles and, in this, saw eye-to-eye. While we have been unable to identify a direct influence on Moses by Kennard Thomson, it is impossible that Moses would have been unaware of Thomson and his work, and their overlapping ideas would have formed a natural synergy. In fact, some of Kennard Thomson's lesser-known work includes a Moses-like series of 1927 plans (NoMoreSubways-kennardthomson-1927) for elevating New York's streets to allow restricted levels for (top to bottom) pedestrians, busses and cars, local and express trains, and commercial vehicles. This map does away with the expanded circle-line subway of his 1911 plan for a network of three-deck highways and nine tunnels.

Publication History and Census

Both maps are unique manuscripts compiled by Thomas Kennard Thomson. The first was drawn in March 1911 on a c. 1887 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map, and the second was drawn in pencil on drafting linen before being hand-inked. Traces of the original pencil remain. Kennard Thomson's work is elusive and was never published. We know of it today mostly through period newspaper and magazine articles - where it created quite a splash. These are the only known examples of Kennards Thomson's 'New Manhattan' drafted by his own hand. The set is jointly owned with Boston Rare Maps.