In considering the 1797 map “A New & Accurate Plan of the City of New York in the State of New York in North America”–commonly known as the Taylor-Roberts Plan after its creators, Benjamin Taylor and John Roberts–Manhattan was then a little island of many identities. It was a city emerging from the devastating occupation…

“I am large, I contain multitudes.” We continue to remember that self-declared truth about Walt Whitman in this, his 200th birth year. In our American and New York imaginations, he does loom so much larger than simply poet and journalist. We have, in the past, explored on this blog his service as a comforter and…

  Today there is nothing remarkable about the idea of New York as a large, diverse, cosmopolitan city. But to mid-19th century New Yorkers,  the rapid growth of New York  from a small, walkable city to a bustling, sprawling metropolis must have been a bit disorienting.  In 1800, there were 60,515 residents of New York City, and more than half the…

This post was written by Joseph Ditta, Reference Librarian. Pick any contentious global issue. Drinking red wine with fish, perhaps. Or wearing white after Labor Day. Do you hang a paper towel roll over or under? You’re either on one side or the other (always the right side, of course). No shilly-shallying. How do you feel…