Explore Broadway through the lens of Charles G. Hine

One way to use this map is to start at the bottom (or top) of Broadway and move geographically up (or down) the island.  Another way is to select one of the underlying themes from the “map” sub-menu to narrow your focus to certain photographs. 

To show the streets, shorelines, and transit lines that existed at the time of Hine’s survey, we are using a rare map published in January 1906 by the Ohman Map Company.  Click to activate subway and “el” routes and stations, which Hine depicted in his photographs, or the boundaries of neighborhoods.  Neighborhood boundaries were of course fluid and shifting – indeed, this is a “theme” of the album as a whole. 

As Hine was fascinated not only by certain historic sites and sights on Broadway, but also by that street’s own complex history, we have incorporated (and georeferenced) earlier maps to render the latter visible: 

• Move the “Historic Progression” slider to show the evolution of Broadway, from its slow growth during the colonial period, to its termination at 23rd Street by the 1811 grid, and then its piecemeal reinstatement through a series extensions granted in 1838, 1847, 1851, and 1865. 

• Click to view the “Indigeneous trails” that Hine’s associate, Reginald Bolton, mapped (somewhat speculatively) in 1912, and see where Broadway followed – and where it diverged – from those trails.

•  Zoom in to view the various waterways in Upper Manhattan (the Hessian Spring, the Run, Sherman’s Creek, and the Inwood marshes), which were in the process of being drained and built over. 

Finally, move the slider to compare the location as it appeared in 1905 to how it appears in 2025.