Research Tools - Physical City
Below you will find
tools available to help begin an exploration of the multi-layered
history of New York City's built forms.
Buildings
ACRIS Track the various owners and property records of building sites via New York City's Automated City Register Information System.
NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Reports Architectural, historical, and cultural information for buildings and sites within New York City's designated historic districts.
Early Real Estate Atlases of New York City A digitalized collection of fire-insurance, topographical, and street maps from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Historic American Buildings Survey
The Library of Congress offers
architectural plans and photos of many
public and private structures:
Buildings Information System The
NYC Department of Buildings offers a searchable catalog of documents
sorted by block and lot.
Office For Metropolitan History Offers a searchable building permits database covering the years 1900-1986.
The New York World's Loose Leaf Album of Apartment Houses, 1910 "Containing views and ground plans of the principal high class apartment houses in New York City, together with a map showing the situation of these houses, transportation facilities, etc." Over 300 digitized page images from the New York Public Library.
Construction of the Bankers Trust Building The Skyscraper Museum offers a remarkable insight into the construction of a Lower Manhattan office tower. Follow the almost daily and monthly progress (each photo-update with commentary and historical context) of 14-16 Wall Street as the site is cleared, construction begins and finishes, and additions are added from 1910 to 1933.
More on how to research city
buildings can be found in these
guides:
- Christopher Gray's Guide to Researching the History of a New York City Building
- Andrew Dolkart of Columbia University Offers Hints on Researching New York City Buildings (Microsoft Word Document)
- Further Building Research Resources From the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
- Research Guide From Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts
Streets
New
York Area Roads,
Crossings, and Exits Extensive
histories of metropolitan area expressways, parkways, and state routes,
including the stories of unbuilt projects like the Mid-Manhattan Expressway, and the
texts of
a variety of historical government transportation reports.
NYC
Streets A guide to
over 1,600 former street names in
Manhattan.
New
York City Signs A
catalog of signs found from 14th Street to
42nd Street in Manhattan.
NYPL
Street Views The New York Public Library
Digital Galleries offer a great collection
of images of New York City streets all available online.
New
York Songlines Virtual
walking tours of Manhattan streets.
Street Necrology Forgotten
New York offers a rare glimpse at the history of New York City streets
existent
and non-existent.
400 Years of Coastline
Track the
development of the ever-expanding coastline of Lower Manhattan.
New
York City Department of Transportation
The city agency tasked
with maintaining New York's transportation system.
Public Transportation & Infrastructure
New York City Subway Resourcees Historical and technical information about the New York City subway system, including images, maps, and museum collections.
Stations
of New York's First Subway Line
Follow the route of the IRT's
first subway line from City Hall to 145th Street and learn about each
of the
stations along the way.
NYC Transit Authority Graphics Standards
Manual, 1970 A
delightful set of images full of Akzidenz Grotesk grandeur.
Historical Subway Maps Survey and
subway
route maps from 1888 to the present. For the next generation of subway
maps visit OnNYTurf's
interactive Google
map hack.
The
Achievements of the MTA Capital Program 1982-2004 By Mark
Mark Seaman, Allison L. C. de Cerreño, and Seth
English-Young of New York University's Rudin Center for
Transportation Policy and Management.
Photographic
Catalog of Long Island Railroad Stations
and Historic
Route Maps from the Long
Island Rail Road History website.
MTA Bus Roster Roster of New York
City's bus fleet from the Urban
Transit Club.
Metrocard
Archive Follow the
development of the MTA's Metrocard program.
Last Phone Booths of Manhattan
Find out where to see the last remaining outdoor free-standing phone
booths in Manhattan.
New
York City Street Lights An
extensive photographic catalog of past and present street lighting
fixtures.
Historic Photographs of New York's
Water
System From the collection of the Department of Environmental
Protection's archives.
The Sewer System Gotham
Gazette looks at the development of New York's wastewater network.
Consolidated
EdisonFrom its
beginnings as the New York Gas
Light Company in 1823, ConEd has provided basic services to NYC
including:
