THIS is how Hagstrom Maps, founded in 1916 as a photo reproduction and retouching house that began selling maps a few years later, depicted the Bellerose section of eastern Queens…

ANCIENT New Utrecht, Brooklyn, now co-terminous with Kings County, was once just one of six towns that made up Kings County, delineated by British rulers in 1683. “Kings” refers to the…

TIME once again to look at some ancient maps depicting the New York City of long ago. Here’s a map excerpt of the area where East Flatbush, Brownsville and East…

HERE’S a map excerpt I found at a NY Transit Museum exhibition of subway maps in early 2020; it shows the Corona (now the Flushing) and Astoria lines under construction.…

ONE of my favorite pastimes is to pore over old maps, especially of New York City, and note what is still there and what has disappeared. In the mid-19th Century,…

HERE’S part of a wonderfully detailed Edsall map of lower Manhattan from 1880. I’m sure I’ll return to it again and again for FNY posts; just look at how busy…

IT’S been quite awhile…2005, to be exact… when I last extensively walked in Brownsville, East New York and that deliberately nonmaintained backwater known as The Hole (even Google Maps calls…

WEST Maspeth, also known as Laurel Hill, was world headquarters of Hagstrom Maps, whose plant is shown here on 46-35 54th Road near 48th Street. Though the company moved out long…

TAKE a look at this section of a vintage 1922 Hagstrom Bronx map … I isolated Hunts Point. There is an entire section of streets that has been completely wiped…

On Facebook, William Padron supplies this map displayed map inside a vintage-1917 IRT Lo-V type trailer subway car #4902 at the New York Transit Museum. Lincoln (52nd), Fisk (69th), Junction Avenue…

I know little about Dripps, the mid-century New York City and environs mapmaker; and in fact, I know little about its successors, Bromley, Belcher Hyde, Rand McNally, Hagstrom and Geographia.…

I haven’t made many forays into Bergen Beach, and its rather newer partner, Georgetown, at least not lately. When I lived in Bay Ridge it was fairly easy to reach…