Title: Downtown Density
Subtitle: Lower Manhattan, early 1930s
Text: This Sanborn map shows all of the buildings, blocks, streets, and limited open space in the northern section of the financial district between Wall Street and City Hall Park. From the mid-nineteenth century, such highly detailed maps were developed as a commercial venture by the Sanborn Map Company, primarily for fire insurance companies to assess risks and set rates. This one dates from the early 1930s.
In addition to the names and addresses of buildings, the map shows the lot lines, dimensions, and coverage, as well as ground-floor plans, location of elevators, and other information in coded format. At a glance, one can distinguish major areas of high-rise construction by the larger floor plates. Older, undeveloped blocks are still divided into narrow lots, completely covered with many low-rise buildings, as at the future site of the World Trade Center and along the East River waterfront. Colored and numbered on this map are the outline of the WTC site and locations of the skyscrapers on the adjacent panel.
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