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This 1842 manuscript map by Edward W. Bridges (son of William), City Surveyor of New York, depicts the block bounded by West, Cortlandt, and Liberty Streets, part of what was then the Hudson River waterfront. Subdivided into narrow parcels and carefully measured, the lots are shaded pink and yellow to differentiate ownership and annotated with penciled numbers keyed to deeds or assessments. Filed with city authorities and later reverified in 1933, it was a working document meant for resolving disputes, tracking conveyances, and managing improvements on newly reclaimed land.

Above the main plan, several inset diagrams are rendered in a trompe l’oeil style, with shading and placement suggesting pinned or pasted papers. These are visual simulations of earlier maps, embedded as aids to understanding the tangled title history of the block. They bear captions such as “Original Grants,” “Map by which the Wilkins Property was originally sold,” and “Map by which the Clark Property (formerly Bard[?] was sold and by which the Messrs Harrisons bought,” with names Walkins and Bardwin noted across plots. Bridges includes a marginal note about an error in an original deed and its correction.

At the time of this survey, the west side of Manhattan was undergoing rapid transformation. Water lots had been extended into the Hudson through successive bulkhead extensions, and the neighborhood, filled with counting-houses, grain stores, and ferry slips, formed part of New York’s busy commercial corridor. A small inset in the lower right corner shows a parcel exchange between two Harrison brothers, their lots adjusted down to the inch to accommodate party walls and a rear building line.

The area shown here now forms part of the World Trade Center site. Bridges’s map preserves a layer of the city long since erased, offering a rare view of New York’s early nineteenth-century shoreline as it looked before later landfill, industrial consolidation, and twentieth-century urban renewal reshaped the tip of Manhattan.