Rare Old Map of Brooklyn, New York by USGS, 1945: Coney Island, Prospect Park & Jamaica Bay
Restaurata nel nostro laboratorio di Londra dalla mappa originale e stampata in qualità museale. Descrizione completa
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Abbina liberamente mappe standard idonee e stampe d’arte fine art. Non è richiesto alcun codice; l’offerta viene applicata automaticamente al checkout.
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Hai bisogno di consegne a indirizzi diversi? Contattaci prima di effettuare l’ordine.L’offerta del Collezionista
Scegli due opere idonee e ricevi il 20% di sconto su entrambe. Scegline tre e quella al prezzo più basso è in omaggio, con un risparmio massimo del 33%.
Abbina liberamente mappe standard idonee e stampe d’arte fine art. Non è richiesto alcun codice; l’offerta viene applicata automaticamente al checkout.
Sono incluse le configurazioni standard su ordinazione. Sono esclusi formati su misura, design personalizzati e lavori su commissione.
Hai bisogno di consegne a indirizzi diversi? Contattaci prima di effettuare l’ordine.
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If you want to add a gift message, or a finish (jigsaw, aluminium board, etc.) that is not available here, please request it in the "order note" when you check out.
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Titled “Franklin” and published by the United States Geological Survey in 1945, this 1:31,680 topographical map captures Brooklyn and its surrounding waterways...
Continua a leggereTitled “Franklin” and published by the United States Geological Survey in 1945, this 1:31,680 topographical map captures Brooklyn and its surrounding waterways at a pivotal historical moment. Issued in the final year of the Second World War, it presents the borough not as a modern cultural shorthand, but as a working urban landscape of docks, rail corridors, industrial basins, residential grids, parks, and tidal margins. The USGS’s precise cartographic language gives the map an authoritative clarity: contour lines, color distinctions, and carefully labeled neighborhoods render the terrain with disciplined elegance. Brooklyn appears here as both city and coastline, shaped by New York Harbor, Jamaica Bay, Gravesend Bay, and a complex web of human infrastructure.
The US Geological Survey had, by 1945, become one of America’s defining cartographic institutions, combining scientific rigor with a remarkably refined visual style. Its topographical maps were designed for practical use—engineering, planning, military reference, geological study—yet they now read as richly layered historical documents. In this map, the USGS method brings order to one of the nation’s densest urban environments, tracing not only streets and railways but also subtle elevations, marsh edges, parkland, and watercourses. The classic topographic layout transforms Brooklyn into a measured landscape, revealing the physical foundations beneath the borough’s familiar urban identity. Every contour and symbol records a relationship between land, water, settlement, and movement.
Brooklyn in 1945 was a borough of immense variety, and this map reflects that diversity with unusual richness. Flatbush, East New York, Bushwick, Red Hook, Canarsie, South Brooklyn, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Coney Island appear as distinct urban worlds connected by roads, railways, and transit lines. Prospect Park forms a great green anchor within the street grid, while the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Brooklyn College signal the borough’s cultural and educational life. To the south, Marine Park, Mill Basin, Barren Island, and Jamaica Bay introduce a more amphibious geography of wetlands, inlets, and reclaimed margins. The result is a portrait of Brooklyn balanced between metropolitan density and coastal openness.
The waterways are among the map’s most compelling features, giving Brooklyn a maritime character that has shaped its history for centuries. New York Harbor, Gravesend Bay, the Gowanus Canal, Mill Basin, and Jamaica Bay define the borough’s edges and industrial arteries. Red Hook and the Gowanus corridor evoke the working waterfront, with warehouses, shipping, and manufacturing embedded into the urban fabric. Coney Island, by contrast, suggests leisure, spectacle, and escape at the city’s southern rim. The wetlands around Jamaica Bay and Canarsie reveal a landscape before later waves of environmental restoration and redevelopment, preserving the memory of tidal flats, marshland, and low-lying coastal terrain.
As a postwar document, this map stands at the threshold of modern Brooklyn. It predates many later transformations: highway expansion, large-scale redevelopment, demographic change, deindustrialization, gentrification, and the reinvention of waterfront neighborhoods. The Brooklyn shown here is still deeply tied to rail lines, docks, canals, working-class districts, and neighborhood-scale urban life. Yet the contours and land-use patterns also hint at the forces that would shape the borough’s future, from coastal engineering to residential expansion and park preservation. With its blend of technical precision and historical atmosphere, “Franklin” offers a rare view of Brooklyn as it was structured in 1945—urban, industrial, maritime, and unmistakably alive.
Cities, towns and places on this map
- Brooklyn
- East New York
- Flatbush
- Coney Island
- Prospect Park
- Jamaica Bay
- Gowanus Canal
- New York Harbor
- Mill Basin
- Gravesend Bay
- Bushwick
- Red Hook
- Canarsie
- Marine Park
- South Brooklyn
- Prospect Lefferts Gardens
- Barren Island
- Brooklyn Botanic Garden
- Brooklyn College
- Major roads and highways
- Railways and transit lines
- Parks and recreational areas
- Wetlands and waterways
- Residential neighborhoods
Historical context & cartographic details
- Historical 1:31,680 topographical map titled Franklin
- Produced by the US Geological Survey (USGS)
- Dated 1945
- Shows Brooklyn, New York, and the surrounding area
- Features nearby regions, waterways, and topographic features
- Uses a classic topographical layout with contour lines to show elevation changes
- Includes shaded relief for added visual depth
- Uses distinct color differences to indicate land cover types such as forests and urban areas
- Shows a mix of urban and natural landscapes
- Reflects Brooklyn’s post-World War II urban structure during a period of rapid development and change
- Documents an area that has since experienced major transformation, including redevelopment, demographic shifts, and gentrification
Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.
Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.
This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.
Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.
Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.
This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.
For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.
Titled “Franklin” and published by the United States Geological Survey in 1945, this 1:31,680 topographical map captures Brooklyn and its surrounding waterways at a pivotal historical moment. Issued in the final year of the Second World War, it presents the borough not as a modern cultural shorthand, but as a working urban landscape of docks, rail corridors, industrial basins, residential grids, parks, and tidal margins. The USGS’s precise cartographic language gives the map an authoritative clarity: contour lines, color distinctions, and carefully labeled neighborhoods render the terrain with disciplined elegance. Brooklyn appears here as both city and coastline, shaped by New York Harbor, Jamaica Bay, Gravesend Bay, and a complex web of human infrastructure.
The US Geological Survey had, by 1945, become one of America’s defining cartographic institutions, combining scientific rigor with a remarkably refined visual style. Its topographical maps were designed for practical use—engineering, planning, military reference, geological study—yet they now read as richly layered historical documents. In this map, the USGS method brings order to one of the nation’s densest urban environments, tracing not only streets and railways but also subtle elevations, marsh edges, parkland, and watercourses. The classic topographic layout transforms Brooklyn into a measured landscape, revealing the physical foundations beneath the borough’s familiar urban identity. Every contour and symbol records a relationship between land, water, settlement, and movement.
Brooklyn in 1945 was a borough of immense variety, and this map reflects that diversity with unusual richness. Flatbush, East New York, Bushwick, Red Hook, Canarsie, South Brooklyn, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Coney Island appear as distinct urban worlds connected by roads, railways, and transit lines. Prospect Park forms a great green anchor within the street grid, while the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Brooklyn College signal the borough’s cultural and educational life. To the south, Marine Park, Mill Basin, Barren Island, and Jamaica Bay introduce a more amphibious geography of wetlands, inlets, and reclaimed margins. The result is a portrait of Brooklyn balanced between metropolitan density and coastal openness.
The waterways are among the map’s most compelling features, giving Brooklyn a maritime character that has shaped its history for centuries. New York Harbor, Gravesend Bay, the Gowanus Canal, Mill Basin, and Jamaica Bay define the borough’s edges and industrial arteries. Red Hook and the Gowanus corridor evoke the working waterfront, with warehouses, shipping, and manufacturing embedded into the urban fabric. Coney Island, by contrast, suggests leisure, spectacle, and escape at the city’s southern rim. The wetlands around Jamaica Bay and Canarsie reveal a landscape before later waves of environmental restoration and redevelopment, preserving the memory of tidal flats, marshland, and low-lying coastal terrain.
As a postwar document, this map stands at the threshold of modern Brooklyn. It predates many later transformations: highway expansion, large-scale redevelopment, demographic change, deindustrialization, gentrification, and the reinvention of waterfront neighborhoods. The Brooklyn shown here is still deeply tied to rail lines, docks, canals, working-class districts, and neighborhood-scale urban life. Yet the contours and land-use patterns also hint at the forces that would shape the borough’s future, from coastal engineering to residential expansion and park preservation. With its blend of technical precision and historical atmosphere, “Franklin” offers a rare view of Brooklyn as it was structured in 1945—urban, industrial, maritime, and unmistakably alive.
Cities, towns and places on this map
- Brooklyn
- East New York
- Flatbush
- Coney Island
- Prospect Park
- Jamaica Bay
- Gowanus Canal
- New York Harbor
- Mill Basin
- Gravesend Bay
- Bushwick
- Red Hook
- Canarsie
- Marine Park
- South Brooklyn
- Prospect Lefferts Gardens
- Barren Island
- Brooklyn Botanic Garden
- Brooklyn College
- Major roads and highways
- Railways and transit lines
- Parks and recreational areas
- Wetlands and waterways
- Residential neighborhoods
Historical context & cartographic details
- Historical 1:31,680 topographical map titled Franklin
- Produced by the US Geological Survey (USGS)
- Dated 1945
- Shows Brooklyn, New York, and the surrounding area
- Features nearby regions, waterways, and topographic features
- Uses a classic topographical layout with contour lines to show elevation changes
- Includes shaded relief for added visual depth
- Uses distinct color differences to indicate land cover types such as forests and urban areas
- Shows a mix of urban and natural landscapes
- Reflects Brooklyn’s post-World War II urban structure during a period of rapid development and change
- Documents an area that has since experienced major transformation, including redevelopment, demographic shifts, and gentrification
Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.
Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.
This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.
Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.
Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.
This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.
For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.
Molte delle nostre mappe e stampe d’arte vengono scelte come regali premurosi per case, uffici, studi e luoghi significativi.
Scegli un’opzione incorniciata per il regalo più semplice, pronto da appendere, oppure scegli una stampa non incorniciata se il destinatario preferisce selezionare la propria cornice.
Realizziamo gli ordini localmente in 23 paesi in tutto il mondo, così i regali possono spesso essere prodotti vicino al destinatario. Questo li aiuta ad arrivare più rapidamente, a viaggiare in maggiore sicurezza e a evitare sorprese legate a dazi doganali o di importazione.
- Possiamo consegnare direttamente al destinatario
- I pezzi incorniciati arrivano pronti da appendere
- Le stampe non incorniciate sono accuratamente imballate in un robusto tubo protettivo
- Quasi ogni ordine viene realizzato localmente, per regali più rapidi e sicuri
- Il reso entro 90 giorni dà al destinatario il tempo di decidere
Se non sei sicuro di cosa scegliere, ti invitiamo a contattarci. Possiamo aiutarti a scegliere la mappa, il formato, la finitura o l’opzione di consegna più adatti.
Most orders are made locally and delivered in around 2–3 working days, depending on the product, size and destination.
We print and frame maps and artwork in 23 countries around the world, so your order is usually made close to you or your recipient. That means faster delivery, less time in transit, and no customs or import duty surprises.
Personalised and customised pieces usually take an extra 1–2 working days, because we prepare your design and send it to you for approval before printing.
Very large framed orders can take a little longer, as they need extra care in production and delivery.
Every order is carefully packaged: unframed prints are sent in a strong protective tube, while framed pieces are securely packed with protective materials around the frame.
If you need your order by a particular date, please contact us before ordering. We’ll check the best production route and delivery option for your location.
Express delivery is available at checkout for most countries. Next-day delivery is available in the UK, US, Singapore and the UAE.
Your order is covered by our 90-day returns policy and 10-year guarantee.
Our standard frame is a gallery-style black ash hardwood frame, with a simple, modern look. It is approximately 20mm (0.8in) wide. You can also view some lovely customer photos of framed maps and art.
We use super-clear acrylic glazing, also known as Perspex or Acrylite, instead of traditional glass. It is lighter, safer, and has lower reflectivity, giving the artwork a clearer, cleaner appearance.
Six standard frame colours are available at no extra cost: black, dark brown, dark grey, oak, white, and antique gold. Custom framing and mounting/matting is also available for customers looking for something more specific.
Most maps, art prints, and illustrations are also available as a framed canvas. We use matte cotton canvas, stretch it over a sustainably sourced wooden box frame, and then float the piece within a wooden outer frame. The finished result is beautifully presented, with no glazing between you and the artwork.
All frames are supplied ready to hang, with either string or brackets fitted to the back. Very large frames will include heavy-duty hanging plates and/or a mounting baton. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
We can also supply old maps and artwork on canvas, foam board, cotton rag, and other materials.
If you would prefer to frame your map or artwork yourself, please read our size guide before ordering.
Every Unique Maps piece begins with an authentic cartographic source or an original design from our London studio.
For our historic maps, we source rare originals from libraries, archives, auction houses and private collections around the world. We carefully restore each map for print—repairing age-related damage, balancing colour and improving clarity while preserving its original detail, texture and character.
Once restored, the map is prepared for your chosen size and finish. Your piece is then printed and, where selected, framed close to its delivery destination.
Our map prints use acid-free 200gsm archival matte paper and fade-resistant pigment inks, creating a rich, non-glossy finish designed to last. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
Canvas, cotton-rag and other specialist presentations are also available. Learn more about our materials and finishes.
Personalising your map
You can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. For personalised designs, we send a proof before printing and you can request changes before approval.
For more complex bespoke commissions, contact our design team.
Original or Aged
Choose Original for true-to-source colour, or Aged for a warmer, richer antique character created with our specialist ageing process. See examples of our Aged maps.
Restauriamo e produciamo mappe e stampe d’arte dal 1984, e garantiamo personalmente ogni pezzo.
Ogni ordine è coperto dalla nostra garanzia di 10 anni e dalla garanzia di consegna senza danni. Se il vostro pezzo arriva danneggiato, lo sostituiremo o lo rifaremo gratuitamente. Se qualsiasi altro aspetto non fosse conforme, contattate il nostro team di laboratorio e provvederemo tempestivamente a risolvere il problema.
Per tutti i dettagli, consultate la nostra politica su resi e rimborsi.
Oppure cerca qualcosa nel negozio.
