Jacobs, Laura (sold)
Laura Jacobs (fl. c. 1960 - 1962) was an artist and amateur cartographer active in New York City. The details of her life are sparse and difficult to trace due to the commonness of her name and the possibility that she married and changed her last name. Jacobs, born c. 1929, grew up in a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Perhaps due to the drabness of her surroundings, she became enamored with Central Park and as an adult moved to W. 57th St. to be adjacent to it. While working as a layout artist for the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children and enjoying the park in her free time, Ms. Jacobs found existing maps produced by the City's Parks Department to be completely inadequate, providing only a sparse outline of the park's many features and very little practical information on attractions such as opening hours and price of admission. She then spent several months compiling her own map, surveying the park on foot and consulting records from the New York Historical Society, among other sources. Spending a hefty sum for the time ($700), Jacobs self-published her map and then arranged for them to be sold at the New York Historical Society and American Museum of Natural History. Her map was very comprehensive, carefully mapping all the park's bridle paths, for example, and was especially useful for including information on opening times and fees (if any) for various attractions and facilities in the park.
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