Scope and Content Note
These are printed and manuscript maps, mostly of the Hudson River and New York Harbor and connecting rivers and bays (e.g. the East River), drawn by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1877 and 1920. The U.S. officers were appointed by the president at the request of the governor of New York in response to concurrent resolutions of the state legislature (1872, 1875, 1877) to have engineers examine and revise pierhead and bulkhead lines to ensure that the waterways remained navigable.
The maps show: pierhead lines (the limit to which open pile structures may be built); bulkhead lines (the limit to which solid fill structures may be built: these lines were either the same as or closer to shore than the pierhead lines); location of platforms, retaining walls, streets, bridges, buildings, and docks along the waterways; and depth of the water at various points. The series also contains a few miscellaneous maps showing state waterways, including a 1786 map of the New York-Pennsylvania border.
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