1788 / c. 1920 Goerck Map of Soho, Manhattan, New York City

This is a c. 1920 copy of a 1788 Casimir Theodor Goerck survey map of Soho. It comprises one of the first times a street grid was imposed on Manhattan Island. Depicting the neighborhood from the east, the map stretches from Grand Street to David Street and from Hancock Street (since consumed by Sixth Avenue) to Broadway. Commissioned in 1788, the Bayard family hired Goerck to survey the part of their estate west of Broadway and to lay out streets and lots so the land could be sold. Although Goerck successfully imposed the grid, creating Mercer, Greene, Wooster, Laurens (now LaGuardia Place), Thompson, Sullivan, and MacDougal Streets that now make up the core of Soho and part of Greenwich Village, his plans broke down near the edges of the estate, since the streets had to connect with existing ones.

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 the office of John B. Holmes, the map publisher. 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

This map was 'made from a copy by A. Loss and presented by him to William Bridges, who was City Surveyor at the time.