The holdings of the New-York Historical Society Library are vast and fascinating. It is always fun to open a box of photos or unroll a set of drawings to discover something new. Recently, a researcher was working with the Printmaker File (PR 58), a collection of aquatints, engravings, etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts, representing work by over…

A series of remarkable photographs from the library’s Geographic File (PR20) documents the construction of the Central Park Reservoir,  located between 86th and 96th streets.  Built between 1858 and 1862, the 106-acre reservoir is 40 feet deep and holds over a billion gallons of water. Once a critical part of the city’s fresh water system, it received water from the Croton…

This post was written by Julia Lipkins, Reference Archivist, Manuscripts Department. Charles Gilbert Hine (1859-1931), an amateur photographer, captured this noir scene of Madison Square Theatre on 24th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway in 1905. His collection of photographs at N-YHS includes platinum, cyanotype, and albumen prints of Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century….