Audubon Park Historic District
AP
This map of Minniesland appeared the year Audubon died. The Hudson River Railroad had only been operating four years. None of the neatly-laid-out streets existed in this part of Manhattan. The future 155th Street was a dirt road that began at the Kingsbridge Road and wound down the hill (on a path between 155th and 156th Streets) to Audubon's house; 158th was straighter, but little more than a cartpath. Broadway (the wide vertial street to the right of center), also known as 11th Avenue and the Boulevard) did not cut through Trinity Cemetery until 1869 and the city did not grade and open 156th and 157th Streets west of Broadway until the turn of the 20th Century. Neither the Victor Audubon house nor the John Woodhouse Audubon house appears on this map, but several outbuildings do, including two on the east side of Broadway, between this map's 155th and 156th Streets. The building at 157th and 12th Avenue may be the Audubon carriage house which later became a residence or it could be the "painting house" where Audubon and his sons prepared the Quadrupeds.
Today, the railroad tracks are approximately 20 yards inland; landfill supporting the Henry Hudson Parkway has erased the large cove that once marked Minniesland's western border.
Detail from Dripps Map 1851
Image copyright © 2000 by Cartography Associates. Images used under the terms of a
Creative Commons License.
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The David Rumsey Collection was started nearly 20 years ago, and focuses primarily on cartography of the Americas from the 18th and 19th centuries, but also has maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, globes, school geographies, books, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps, including pocket, wall, children's and manuscript.
