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1900 Map of Brooklyn

Name: 1900 Topographic Map of Brooklyn
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1910
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1910

About this map

Jamaica Bay dominates the southeastern portion of this landscape, a complex network of marshes, channels, and hassocks as they existed at the start of the 20th century. The intricate shoreline features historic points of entry like Canarsie Landing and Remsen Landing, which provided vital access to the bay before extensive modern dredging and land reclamation. To the west, the growing urban grid of Brooklyn Borough and Queens Borough is already well-defined, punctuated by massive greenspaces including Greenwood Cemetery, Prospect Park, and Cypress Hills Cemetery.

A robust transit infrastructure is visible through the web of the Long Island Railroad and specialized lines like the Brooklyn Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad and the New York and Rockaway Beach Railroad. These rails connected established villages such as Elmhurst, Jamaica, and Newtown to the leisure destinations of Rockaway Beach and Manhattan Beach. The map preserves the names of early landmarks like the Brooklyn Reservoir and numerous family-named marshes like Jo Co's Marsh, offering a detailed view of the region's pre-war geography.