Governors Island in 1770
Jan 18, 2011 6:33 pm
[caption id=“attachment_4139” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“This rare map from 1770 has been restored by the Brooklyn Historical Society. The map is shown before and after restoration (photo from nytimes.com)”]
[/caption] Sunday’s New York Times featured a story about a rare map that has been painstakingly restored by the Brooklyn Historical Society. The map is more than 240 years old and is one of only four such maps by Bernard Ratzer that are thought to exist. You can see that Governors Island (noted on the map as “Governour’s or Nutten Island”) is half the size of what it is today (the Island was expanded at the turn of the 20th century with landfill from digging the Lexington Avenue subway). The bottom of the map also features a beautiful illustration of the southern view of Manhattan, as seen from Governors Island, complete with ships, row boats and British settlers. Click here to see more of this incredible map.