Featured Products

Historic fire insurance maps dating from the 1880s - 1915 are available for all Five Boroughs. Please fill out the form with the address of the area and we will send you the corresponding historic map. Message us with questions or if you need help.

These maps were used by insurance companies to assess properties and have become extremely useful to urban historians, as they identify not just the pattern of streets and blocks but the precise lot or building dimensions, outline, and lot coverage; height in stories; street and sidewalk widths; addresses; lot owner; stream; farm lines; and the City's block and lot numbers. The color of the lot determines the type of exterior, most often pink for brick.

The original maps were part of a “Land Book” that was broken up into several volumes. Each page, or plate depicts a section of the map, usually four or five square blocks. An index page in the front of the book helps the user find a specific plate, or view the legend.

Printed on museum quality archival paper, 13x19”

The Plan of the City of New York in North America by British military officer Bernard Ratzer, created in 1766-1767 and printed in 1770.

The Ratzer Map offers a detailed view of Brooklyn and Manhattan in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. The Brooklyn Historical Society detailed the map and its importance:

"It shows two views of a bustling and growing city set amid fields and forests. A large map provides a birds-eye view of lower Manhattan Island, eastern New Jersey, and—across the East River—the farms of “Brookland” (Brooklyn). At the bottom of the map, Bernard Ratzer included a view of busy New York harbor as seen from Governor’s Island. This panorama shows an incredible level of detail, including ships, buildings, and the coastline. It is so detailed that it even shows smoke rising from buildings in Manhattan. The Ratzer Map gives us many clues about New Yorkers of 240 years ago. We see the development of city infrastructure, including sometimes twisting, sometimes grid-like roads. Clusters of buildings indicate where most people lived and worked. The names of farms and large estates tell us who owned land. The map shows important natural features, such as swamps, ponds, rivers and streams. It also shows us ways that New Yorkers changed the natural landscape by planting pastures, orchards, and gardens."

1972 modernist subway map by designer, Massimo Vignelli who also designed the New York City Transit Authority’s Graphic Standards Manual in 1970. This simplified map is not geographically accurate, simplifying the subway system into a diagram of colored lines. Each station is represented by a dot and linked to other color-coded lines running vertical, horizontal, or at 45-degree angles. Water is beige, parks are brown, the boroughs are greatly distorted with no mention of specific landmarks or neighborhoods. Central Park, for example, is wider than it is tall.

Since the map was replaced for a more geographically accurate map in 1979, the map has become a favorite for graphic design enthusiasts.