An Aerial View of New York City

A unique bird’s eye view of the city from Midtown during the Great Depression.

Richard Edes Harrison was a brilliant graphic artist and cartographer who would become most well known for his revolutionary maps and views created during World War II. This perspective of New York City was one of his early works, created during the Great Depression when Harrison was working prolifically in design and advertising.

He produced the map on behalf of the Herald Square Hotel, which is boldly identified in red in the foreground. The sweeping panorama continues across the horizon and includes the rest of Manhattan Island, New Jersey, the Bronx and Queens. Major attractions and locations of interest are finely illustrated and labeled with a mix of elaborate, yet legible, text.

There are at least two known examples of this map. The first is undated and likely issued in 1931, shortly before the Rockefeller Center was completed. Later issues are dated 1932 and identify the “Site of the World’s Fair” (1936). This appears to be an uncatalogued example produced sometime between the two – it includes the Lincoln Tunnel (construction started in 1934), but is undated and omits the site of the World’s Fair in Queens.