New York City Map 1769 City Plan - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island

Bernard Ratzer's survey of New York City, engraved and published by Thomas Kitchin, one of London's leading engravers and map publishers, appeared in this first state in 1769, a full year before Ratzer's larger and more expansive second map of the city and its environs. Commonly called the "Ratzen Plan" due to an engraver's misspelling of Ratzer's name in the title cartouche, the map was drawn in 1767 following Sir Henry Moore's 1765 authorization of a detailed city survey, prompted by British fears that New York could become a flashpoint after the Stamp Act Riots. This rare first state was likely intended for the British administration rather than general public circulation, distinguishing it from the second state, issued in 1776 with the added imprint of Thomas Jefferys and William Faden. Cohen and Taliaferro count this plan and its larger 1770 successor among the finest maps produced for any American city during the entire eighteenth century.

The plan shows New York's existing topography, streets, avenues, estates, farmlands, wharfs and forts, capturing just how small a town New York still was on the eve of the Revolution despite its importance as a British colonial port. A small portion of Brooklyn, labeled here as "Part of Long or Nassau Island," appears with the important Brookland Ferry marked, the crossing that would carry British troops during the 1776 New York campaign just a few years after this map's publication. A key beneath the title identifies 31 important sites across the city, giving the plan a documentary precision so exact that it has occasionally been used to settle property title disputes even in modern times. This first state's intended audience within the British administration lends it a slightly different character from the more widely circulated second state issued seven years later.

This rare first-state plan makes a fitting gift for a New York family with roots reaching to the city's final years as a small colonial town, or for a collector building out the full sequence of Ratzer's New York surveys. We also carry Ratzer's larger 1770 map of the city and its environs, an annotated copy used in an 1810 Chancery land dispute; this 1769 plan is the earlier, smaller-scope first state, covering only the built-up lower portion of Manhattan rather than the wider region Ratzer surveyed the following year. It ships unframed and is available in the full range of sizes we offer, from a compact desk print to a large-format piece for a study or office wall.