1962 Carl Rose Manuscript Original Pictorial Map of New York City

This is the original manuscript artwork for Carl Rose's 1962 map of New York, drawn for the New York Times Magazine special edition covering the opening of Lincoln Center.

A Closer Look

The map features a charming northwest-oriented map of New York focusing on Manhattan, but including parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. The compass rose, in the upper left, is composed of figures pointing in in the cardinal directions. There are some 60 vignette pastedown images surrounding the map, all cleverly drawn, to humorously illustrate iconic New York sites and poke gentle fun at New Yorkers themselves.

A Cultural Game

This appeared in the fold out centerfold in the original New York Times Magazine:

Here is a cartographer's charade of Our Town. The trick is to look at the drawings first and try, from the numbered captions, to identify the places and pursuits numbered correspondingly on the map. Not all the city's important places are shown here, of course. Lincoln Center (31), adding new glory to its cultured neighbors, has a prominent place in Carl Rose's imaginative drawing. ('New York Times Magazine', September 23, 1962)

Publication History and Census

As an original manuscript drawn by Carl Rose, this piece is unique. It was printed and published in color for the 1962 Times Magazine Special Edition (September 23, 1962). This edition of the magazine is itself quite rare, but we were able to trace the issue through the New York Times archive.