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1900 Map of Brooklyn

Name: 1900 Topographic Map of Brooklyn
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1916
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1916

About this map

Jamaica Bay dominates the southern landscape of this turn-of-the-century survey, revealing a complex network of marshes, channels, and islands before modern landfilling and airport construction transformed the shoreline. The intricate geography of Duck Point Marshes and Big Egg Marsh contrasts with the rapidly densifying street grids of Greenpoint and Hunters Point to the north. Immense burial grounds including Greenwood Cemetery, Evergreens Cemetery, and Cypress Hills Cemetery form a massive green belt across the central hills, a spatial legacy of the era's Rural Cemetery Act.

Transportation patterns of a growing metropolis are evident in the sprawling Long Island Railroad network and lines like the New York and Rockaway Beach Branch, which bridged the marshes to reach Rockaway Beach. Local history and genealogy researchers can identify early neighborhood footprints in settlements such as Winfield Junction, Linden Hill, and Columbusville, many of which have since been absorbed into the broader urban fabric of Queens and Brooklyn.