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| The old halfway house at the junction of Broadway, 8th Ave. & 59th St. |
“If any one among us may calculate surely on a sublunary immortality, Mr. VALENTINE is the man. He has linked his name indissolubly with one of the greatest cities in the world in a manner which time shall strengthen not efface.” These were the accolades heaped on David Thomas Valentine (1801-1869) by The New York Times in 1863. Valentine, who served as Deputy Clerk to the Common Council for 37 years (apparently without promotion) had access to the most ancient archives of New York City. He also had the inspiration to seek out the earliest charts, maps, views of the city and publish them in facsimile form from 1841 to 1866 in his Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York.
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| Murray Hill : the oldest house, foot of Murray Hill, cor. 3d Av. & 34th St. |
If you are seeking visual evidence supporting the study of urban America or the transformation from the colonial to the industrial age, Valentine’s Manual is for you. Valentine had an eye for what was historic even in the 19th century and recorded the rapidly vanishing colonial architecture and old neighborhoods of New York. Valentine’s presentation of impoverished streets as picturesque is problematic today. However, the print of the ramshackle house on Peck Slip where he grew up testifies to his close familiarity with his subject.
Contemporary 19th century innovations and events also appear, like the Loew Bridge over Broadway, made necessary by the frequent pedestrian fatalities, and views of colorful parades of soldiers heading south during the Civil War.
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| The “Loew Bridge,” Broadway & Fulton St. |
The illustrations from Valentine’s Manual have been known to historians for some time and they have been available in scanned book versions in HathiTrust, Google Book, and other digital repositories. However, the prints in these online versions are difficult to locate without tedious browsing.
The Clements holds two sets of Valentine’s Manual, one in the Book Division, the other as dis-bound prints in the Graphics Division. This latter set has been catalogued individually by former Head of Reader Services Diana Sykes and scanned by Digital Projects Librarian and Curator of Books Emi Hastings. 240 of these scanned images have recently been added to our Clements digital image bank with corresponding subject terms and descriptions, making this the most easily accessible online version of the illustrations from the Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. The remainder of the scanned images will be added shortly.
Click here to browse prints from the Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York in the Clements Library Image Bank.
Clayton Lewis
Curator of Graphic Materials