1868 Shannon and Rogers View of Printing House Square (Park Row) City Hall Park, New York City

Attractive view of New York City's historically significant Printing House Square.

This is a beautiful 1868 view of the Printing House Square or what is today Park Row near the southern triangle of City Hal Park, New York City by Shannon and Rogers. It depicts what was at the time known as Printing House Square, a concentrated hub of newspaper publishing from the 1840s, as seen from City Hall Park. The Times building can be seen on the right, at the time the most prominent building on the square. The Times would later move to 42nd Street and lend its name to Long Acre Square or Times Square, as it is known today. Located close to City Hall and the courthouses as well as the city’s main post office (from the 1870s), the various publications and newspapers had easy and quick access to news and information. Black smoke, presumably from the printing presses in the basement of some of these buildings, can be seen rising from the chimneys. Signs on the facade indicate the offices of ‘The Sun’, The Tribune’, ‘Sunday Times’, ‘The World’, and other publications in the buildings. The foreground of the view features people strolling in City Hall Park. Lawyer and reformer Frank Moss, in his book The American Metropolis from Knickerbocker Days to the Present Time describes Printing House Square:

Every great event for fifty years past has been watched for and learned from the bulletin boards, by throngs assembled in this square. Here, when newspapers have prepared to show election news, is the place to see New York at it's best and its worst.

The square will ever be famous as the place where The Great American Newspaper has had its development. Greeley, Raymond, Dana, Jones, and many others, hardly less famous, have done their life work here, and have enriched the nation and the world by it.

This view was prepared for inclusion in the 1868 edition of Joseph Shannon's Manual of The Corporation of the City of New York.

Cartographers

Joseph Shannon (fl. c. 1850 - 1869) produced a series of New York City almanacs and fact books entitled Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. Shannon's Manual is very similar to the more common manual issued by David T. (Thomas) Valentine (1801 - 1869). The production of this annual manual was the responsibility of the Clerk of the Common Council of the City of New York, a position held at different times by both Shannon and Valentine. The manual included facts about the City of New York, City Council information, history, and reported on the progress of public works such as Central Park.   Further Details...

William C. Rogers (fl. c. 1860 - 1873) was a New York based lithographer active in the mid to late 19th century. His is best known for his engravings issued in conjunction with Joseph Shannon's Manual of the Corporation fo the City of New York. Rogers issued several maps of New York City in the 1860s and 1870s.   Further Details...

Source

Shannon, J., Shannon's Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, (1868 edition).    

Condition

Very good. Minor staining on margins.