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New York City Property Map Collections at NYPL: Staten Island

This guide describes the ways researchers can navigate NYPL's various NYC real property cartographic collections via the research catalog and Digital Collections to locate cadastral, fire insurance, topographical, and real property auction maps.

Staten Island (Richmond County)

The majority of the Library's Staten Island cadastral maps are from the late 19th century.  The best way to locate these maps in the research catalog is by using keyword search terms combined with the borough name such as:

Below are a few highlights from the collections with links to the research catalog and Digital Collections when available:

The Library's collection of fire insurance maps are available via atlases / sheet maps, the Digital Collections, online databases, and microfilm. Our collections include depictions of the blocks and lots of Staten Island starting in the late 19th century to the present period. 

Atlases and Sheet Maps

Locating maps can be challenging because the subject heading Fire insurance -- New York (State) -- New York is  all-encompassing and will result in records for all five boroughs. It's best to search the research catalog using terms such as:

Highlights from the collections that show Staten Island's development from the late 19th century to the present:

Digital Collections Images

Over the past few years we have uploaded scans of most of our copyright free NYC fire insurance atlases to the Digital Collections. Browse the NYC Fire Insurance, Topographic and Property Maps research guide to locate Staten Island plates published between 1874 and 1917.


Database

The Library has a subscription to the ProQuest Digital Sanborn Map database which can be accessed at all branch libraries  or via your own device when you login using your NYPL library card. To view maps of Staten Island select "New York" under the state tab and then select "Richmond Borough of New York City." This database includes Staten Island Sanborns from 1885 to the early 1950s.


Microfilm

The library also has copies of Sanborns on microfilm, this format may be preferable if you need to document the transformation of a site over a long period of time. To view maps published during the first half of the 20th century browse the catalog record Sanborn fire insurance maps - New York;  for maps published from the 1960s to the 1990s see the record Fire insurance maps from the Sanborn Map Company archives.
 

The majority of the Library's collection of Staten Island topographic surveys were published by the USGS and may be viewed online via their topoView web portal. However, there are a couple other examples of this map type at the Library worth noting:

The remaining topo maps may be located by searching the online catalog using the keyword term :

 

Real property auction maps, also known as "farm maps," are sheets or pamphlets created by auctioneers sometimes containing maps, birds-eye views, and or descriptions of land for sale. The Library has a small number of maps that show property for sale in Staten Island that were mostly published in the first half of the 20th century. These maps document the gradual transformation of the borough from a collection of small towns and country estates into an almost continuous patchwork of suburban sprawl connected by a collection of vehicular expressways.  Some of these maps may be found by searching the online catalog using the keyword phrase:

Below are a few highlights from the collections with links to the research catalog and Digital Collections when available: