New York Harbor Nautical Chart, 1861

The story of this map

Every ship bound for New York in 1861 came in past Sandy Hook, up through the Narrows, and into the Upper Bay with Manhattan at its head — and this is the US Coast Survey chart that showed the way. Published at the Survey’s 1:80,000 coast-chart scale, it takes in the whole harbor on one sheet, from the open Atlantic to the mouths of the Hudson and the East River.

What makes it striking is how much water there is around the city. Manhattan is a small pointed thing at the top; the bays are vast, and they are filled with sounding figures that thin out along the ship channel. The Narrows, pinched between Brooklyn and Staten Island, is the natural eye of the chart. Sandy Hook curls out below like a question mark, with the low Jersey shore running away behind it.

This copy comes from Phillips Academy by way of the Leventhal Map Center. The scan is a little softer than most in our collection, so we recommend the mid-range sizes for the crispest result.

It is made for a New York apartment, a Brooklyn brownstone, or a Jersey Shore house that faces the harbor. Part of our Framed Nautical Charts collection; it pairs well with the 1865 Viele water map of Manhattan. Printed to order on archival matte paper and framed in the country of delivery.

Before and after

Left: the archive scan exactly as published. Right: the file that goes to the printer.

Archive scanRestored

Restoration notes

Restoration plan: this scan is lower resolution than most in the collection (about 6.4k x 7.3k pixels), so sharpening must be conservative and the largest sizes checked for softness before release; crop scan margins, balance colour cast and levels while keeping the paper tone, remove library stamps and scanner artefacts if present. No repainting of original content.

Every print carries its archive credit on the packing slip. Paper tone and small imperfections of the original are kept on purpose; nothing is redrawn.