New York from the Steeple of St. Paul's Church, Looking East, South, and West

Henry A. Papprill|John William Hill|Henry J. Megarey

1849 · Color aquatint and etching; second state of three · Drawings and Prints

This panorama captures a bustling lower Manhattan in 1849. Taken from the tower of St. Paul’s Chapel on Broadway, just below City Hall Park, the view includes P. T. Barnum’s famous museum at lower left, which stood at the junction of Broadway, Park Row and Ann Street from 1841 to 1865. Horse-drawn omnibuses and pedestrians crowd the street below and a rooftop sign at right identifies Mathew Brady's Daguerrean Miniature Gallery, where New Yorkers had their photographs taken. Above the projecting roof, Fulton Street recedes towards the East River and, at right, Broadway moves south past the towered Main Post Office facing Nassau Street; Trinity Church at Wall Street; its spire, completed in 1846, would remain the city’s tallest structure until 1890.

Artist

Henry A. Papprill|John William Hill|Henry J. Megarey

Date

1849

Medium

Color aquatint and etching; second state of three

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Edward W. C. Arnold Collection of New York Prints, Maps and Pictures, Bequest of Edward W. C. Arnold, 1954