Gallery: Fascinating Old Maps of Both Real and Ridiculous NYC Transit Projects
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Thomson's plan would have increased Manhattan's area by nearly a third by filling in much of New York Harbor.
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This 1877 map depicts a proposal for a Manhattan Beach Railway to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn to Coney Island's beaches. Among the benefits: giving poor people without horses and carriages access to "sea-shore recreation." As the city's subway network consolidated, the southern extension of the railway was consumed by the B and Q lines.
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The southern terminus of the Manhattan Beach Railway from the previous 1877 map.
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Before it had a subway, Manhattan had an extensive system of elevated (blue) and horse-drawn (red) rail lines, as depicted in this 1882 map.
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Detail of lower Manhattan from the previous 1882 map of elevated and horse-drawn rail lines.
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This 1883 map shows a railway tunnel crossing the Hudson River. Clifford Milburn Holland, the chief engineer on the existing tunnel that bears his name, was born the same year. The Holland Tunnel, completed in 1927 (about 15 blocks north), was the first to connect the roadways of Manhattan and New Jersey.
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Tiny trains chug under the Hudson River in this detail of the 1883 railway tunnel plan from the previous map.
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Some 19th century railway plans survive virtually intact today, Knutzen says. This 1882 engineer's drawing shows a line on the same tracks and the modern N train south of where it splits from the R train in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
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One difference, however, is the southern end of the line, which ended at the iconic Sea Beach Palace Hotel, across the street from the current home of the Cyclone roller coaster. (The modern N line stops a few blocks to the west).
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New York's Pennsylvania Station is a major commuter rail hub. The site was once home to another station with the same name, an elegant landmark of pink granite and soaring skylights whose destruction in 1963 outraged many New Yorkers. The original is depicted in this 1911 Sanborn fire insurance map, and shown in detail on the next slide.
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Detail of the original Penn Station from the previous 1911 Sanborn map.
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This map, from a 1903 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle shows the three bridges and five tunnels that connected Brooklyn to Manhattan at the time, along with along with five more tunnels that were underway or proposed. Today seven tunnels connect the two boroughs, in addition to the three bridges.. As the 20th century unfolded, the rise of the automobile led to major transportation links not shown here, including the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and Belt Parkway.
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The Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge are visible in this detail from the previous map.
