1964 Bollmann View and Map of New York City, Midtown

The high point of 20th century urban cartographic art – the 1964 Bollmann axonometric map of midtown Manhattan – presenting the area at the stylistic peak of the skyscraper era. Bollmann created an image of great, apparent precision by employing subtle distortion and exaggeration to emphasize scale and clarity.  The entire work was first drawn by hand, and its preparation boasted the use of over 67,000 photographs, 17,000 of which were aerial. Bollmann widened the streets to keep the image uncluttered; his view dispenses with perspective to maintain a uniform scale for all the buildings and allow comparison of size. The result captures the highest concentration of skyscrapers in the world of its day, presenting each with its uniquely recognizable profile: the iconic Empire State building, the graceful Art Deco curves of the Chrysler building, the sleek blade of the United Nations, and the ultra-modern helicopter pad of the Pan Am building.  The verso of the map is a detailed and large-scale subway map of the five boroughs, showing the three subway lines in operation at the time: the IRT, the BMT and the IND. Another distinction between this and the earlier issues is the notation of the 1965 world's fair, and the renaming of Idlewild International Airport to JFK.

Publication History

Bollmann printed an issue of this view in Germany in 1962;  there are significant typographical differences between it and the two Barnes-printed American editions of the map. Both of these New York-printed editions were brighter and livelier than the German issue. One was printed in 1963 to promote the 1964 World’s Fair; a further 1964 printing was released with the additional sponsorship of American Airlines in 1964 when the fair was extended an additional year. The American Airlines ticket offices which can be found marked throughout the view do not appear in the earlier editions. A further printing of this view, printed on one side in a smaller format and lacking a guide book , was issued in the 1980s.