The top image is from an old photograph of Manhattanville taken from a high lookout point on the northern borders of Central Park around 1862. We rarely find mid-19th century photographs of Harlem, so it's pretty amazing to see Harlem pictured this way instead of the usually prints and drawings. The lower photo is the similar view today but taken from the west, off of Morningside Park. Click on images to enlarge. See our previous post on what the area looked like as rendered by the artist of the time: LINK
Amazing photograph, Lincoln was president, the civil war was raging to the south and the vista looks like pastoral farmland.
ReplyDeleteYour link to the 1900’s south Harlem landscape painting shows similar farmland scenery but the following street maps http://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=5690 show the grid fully laid out by 1884. Maybe the farmland painting is from an earlier time.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that 1900 was about the breaking point when Morningside Heights had much of the larger buildings built over the farmland and central South Harlem and Manhattanville still had open land available. The grid would have been planned out by the city even before the tracks were laid down. From 1890 to 1907, the land would change dramatically.
ReplyDeleteFrom studying these 1884 maps http://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=5689 we have an early snapshot of the beginnings of the Harlem that now exists. It seems the initial build out of Harlem was centered on a 24 block area from 122nd to 134th Streets and 6th (Lenox) to 8th (FDB) Avenues. If these maps are to be trusted, a significant number the buildings in this area go back to 1884 or possibly a few years earlier. This being it seems, the oldest part of brownstone Harlem and a lot of these older homes still survive today.
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