New York City Map 1776 City Plan - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Governors Island

The Universal Magazine published this detailed plan of New York City in its November 1776 edition, capturing the city's nascent urban development and pastoral outskirts at the very outset of the Revolutionary War's New York campaign. Appearing only thirteen years after Bellin's Ville de Manath ou Nouvelle-Yorc, itself the earliest obtainable map of the city, the Universal Magazine plan stands among the earliest obtainable printed maps of New York and was likely the first widely distributed map of the city in the English language. The map synthesizes the earlier surveying work of Montresor in 1766 and Ratzer in 1767, adding new details including the name Delaney's New Square applied to an area near the Collect Pond, here labeled Fresh Water, that had by 1776 become surrounded by blocks marked New Buildings not Finished. While not a rare map in absolute terms, it has grown increasingly scarce on the market over time.

The plan names many streets and roads, including Broadway and the Road to King's Bridge, marked with the note that this was "where the Rebels mean to make a Stand," running parallel to the Road to Kepps Bay, "where the Kings Troops Landed," a striking piece of contemporary military annotation captured directly on a commercial magazine map. Wharves, ferries, public buildings, some industries, orchards, gardens, fields and houses, including some named residents, are all detailed alongside Fort George and the Battery, the city's principal military installations at its southern tip. The map's depiction of Delaney's New Square, its grid of unfinished buildings, captures a city caught mid-transformation, its optimistic pre-war development frozen in place just as war arrived. Pastoral elements such as farmland near the Brooklyn Ferry stand in sharp contrast to the built-up lower Manhattan streets shown elsewhere on the same sheet.

This early Revolutionary War plan makes a fitting gift for a New York family with roots reaching back to the city's colonial era, or for a collector drawn to maps annotated with the immediate military stakes of 1776. We carry a second example of this same Universal Magazine edition in our collection; both derive from the identical November 1776 printing, and this copy is offered as a distinct example for a collector who wants more than one impression of this historically significant plan. It's supplied unframed and available across our full range of sizes, from a small desk print to a large-format piece for a bigger wall.