----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Mark, We will copy several of the early ward maps, particularly 1850, for you, and send them on to you for your patron. It will be next week, as I am off to Tennessee for a few days starting tomorrow. Yes, the upper wards were subdivided as population moved northward, and grew in the particular wards. The ward system was dropped around the turn of the century with the loss of the Tamany Hall ward politics. The blocks and lots were all renumbered for tax purposes, in 1891, as a part of this reorganization. Ward maps continued to be printed after that, [out of inertia?] and eventually we start seeing the current system of Assembly District and Election District maps. None of these wards, a.d.s or e.d.s, of course, are coextensive with Census data areas, so...problems abound. Sorry to muddy the waters. Alice Hudson Map Division, Center for the Humanities The New York Public Library ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: land area of NYC wards, 1850 Author: Mark Thomas <[log in to unmask]> at ~Internet-Mail Date: 4/2/97 3:36 PM ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- We have a patron who wants the land area of Ward 1, 4, and 11 in New York City in 1850. This has to do with calculating the population density. The population by ward is given in the 1850 population census (Dubester 30), but they don't list the area like they have in more recent censuses for political and census geography divisions. Even a map of that time showing the ward boundaries would be good as long as it was at a large enough scale to make area estimates. Also, did the wards stay the same over the years? Looking in the Encyclopedia of NYC (p. 1236-7) and the Historical Atlas of NYC (p. 80-81), it seems that they kept subdividing the northern one over the years, but for #'s 1,4, and 11 you could probably get the area for the 1830s or the 1890s and it would be the same as for 1850. Is this true? If anyone has a lead (or the answer!), I'd appreciate it. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mark Thomas | Yet there's not a train I Perkins Library, Duke University | wouldn't take 919-660-5853 / FAX: 919-684-2855 | No matter where it's going [log in to unmask] | --Edna St. Vincent Millay