Lot 130: Goerck's 1785 working survey of the Common Lands that became Fifth Avenue

[MAP-NEW YORK]

[GOERCK, CASIMIR, attributed to]. A manuscript survey of the Manhattan Common Lands, dated 1785. A manuscript survey plan in ink on joined sheets, with irregular edges but the image substantially complete, unsigned and untitled but with a preserved manuscript strip reading "Done in the year 1785." Laid down to a large rectangular linen backing. About 74 x 27 inches (188 x 68.5 cm). Small losses where folded and elsewhere, stains and spotting, the main image substantially complete but the map edges irregular as noted with some loss of manuscript, sold as is.

This large working plan shows the Common Lands on Manhattan surveyed in 1785 by Casimir Goerck, the layout that became Fifth Avenue. In the early Federal period, after eight years of British occupation during the Revolutionary War, the City's finances were in disarray. The City had no real power to tax individuals and could only raise money through fees relating to wharfing, recording marriages, deaths, and births, and by leasing its vast lands. The City could also sell lots of its land and in 1785 decided to divide the Common Lands, a large, unimproved, land-locked landmass of about 1200 acres, into five-acre parcels. The Common Lands were about two miles north of the developed part of the city, its southernmost point at about the intersection of today's Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street at Madison Square Park, and reached to the lands known as Harlem. The surveyor chosen for this project was Casimir Goerck.

The map shows where the Middle Road extends from the where the Bloomingdale and Post Roads diverge. At the southern end, larger farms owned by the Semler and Van Orden families are indicated and to the northeast lands beloging to the Beekman family. This is likely a working draft of the final plan Goerck submitted to the City in December 1785, with the Common Lands divided to about 150 parcels. The Middle Road later became Fifth Avenue on the Commissioners plan of 1811 and eventually the most iconic street in New York City.

[NEW YORK-SURVEY MAP]