New York City Map 1870 City Plan - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, a London educational publisher known for producing accessible, factually dense reference maps, issued this detailed plan of New York City around 1870. The Society, commonly abbreviated SDUK, built its reputation through the mid-nineteenth century on maps and texts aimed at broadening public education across a wide range of subjects, and this New York plan reflects that same commitment to careful documentary detail over decorative flourish. The plan extends north to roughly 40th Street and includes parts of Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, Jersey City and Governor's Island, giving London readers a genuinely thorough view of the harbor's geography a full generation before consolidation created the five-borough city. A large vignette of City Hall and Broadway, viewed from the Park, anchors the sheet's decorative element within an otherwise information-dense composition.

The Harlem Railroad is shown extending into the Bowery, while the Albany, Long Island, New York and Williamsburgh Ferries thread across the harbor waters connecting Manhattan to its neighboring municipalities. A Proposed Pier and Basin appears marked in the Hudson River, alongside shipyards, dry docks and other maritime infrastructure detailed along the East River, reflecting the harbor's status as one of the busiest ports in the world by this period. Forty public buildings are individually named in the map's key, giving readers a genuinely comprehensive index to the city's civic landmarks rather than a handful of highlighted sites. This SDUK plan's British publishing origin makes it a somewhat unusual entry among the largely American-published city maps of this period, offering an outside, educationally minded perspective on New York's rapid postwar growth.

This plan makes a fitting gift for a New York family with roots reaching back to the years just after the Civil War, or for a collector interested in how a London educational publisher chose to depict America's largest city for a British readership. We also carry an earlier SDUK edition of this same New York City plan from around 1840; this circa-1870 printing reflects the city's substantially greater growth and ferry network in the three intervening decades. 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.