Later Guidebooks

[C. S. Francis & Co.]. Francis’s New Guide to the Cities of New-York and Brooklyn, and the Vicinity . . .
New York: C. S. Francis & Co., 252 Broadway, 1856

The guide is well illustrated, with many wood engravings of buildings. The Brooklyn section consists of 12 pages out of 148. One novel section of the guide describes “Portrait, Landscape and Miniature Painters,” suggesting that people can visit their studios, and giving the addresses for artists such as (Asher B.) Durand and (John F.) Kensett. Photographers running Daguerrean studios are similarly described.

[ James Miller]. Miller’s New York As It Is, or Stranger’s Guide-Book to New York, Brooklyn, and Adjacent Places . . .
New York: James Miller, 436 Broadway, 1859

Miller’s New York was one of the longest-running guidebooks in New York in the 19th century, with an origin around 1859 (a successor to C. S. Francis) and still publishing as late as 1882. Only Phelps’s guides could rival Miller’s, but the Taintor guides actually had a longer run. The Miller’s guides were amply illustrated with wood engravings and normally had a large folding map in the back. One unusual topic in Miller’s guides is “Principal Restaurant Saloons” (Taylor’s, Thompson’s, and Maillard’s, according to the 1859 edition) and a list of the more important “refectories and oyster saloons.”

R. Alvarez e I. G. Gredíaga. Guia de Nueva York para uso de los Españoles É Hispanoamer-icanos.
Nueva York: John A. Gray, 1863

A larger-format guide for use by the Spanish community during the U.S. Civil War era. It has 166 pages plus 36 pages of advertising in the back, and many wood engravings of buildings.

D. T. Valentine. Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York 1864.
[New York: Corporation of the City of New York, 1864].

While technically neither guidebooks nor viewbooks, “Valentine’s Manuals” contain more information about the City and its institutions and more views than any other publications in the 1840s–1860s. They began in 1841 as very small manuals of New York City government, and by 1864 there are 856 pages and several large maps, many chromolithographic illustrations of both contemporary New York scenes and historic ones, and a large number of wood-engraved views of New York municipal and charitable institutions’ buildings.

[T. Ellwood Zell]. Guide to New York: its Public Buildings, Places of Amusement, Churches, Hotels, &c.
New York: T. Ellwood Zell & Co., No. 37 Park Row, 1868

The distinctive feature of this guide is its illustrations, with many commercial and public buildings being reproduced with good lithography, many as part of advertisements. In the back is a Guide to the Hudson River and Lake George with 10 intaglio engravings of scenic views of the Hudson.

The City of New York: A Complete Guide . . .
New York: Taintor Brothers, 678 Broadway [c. 1873, though the copyright is 1867].

Taintor Brothers produced another long-running guide. Originally it was published in 1867 by Taintor Brothers with H. F. Walling listed as the author, but by 1873 or so, Walling’s name is gone and it is entirely Taintor Brothers. The 1873 edition has limited illustrations but a large colored map. Taintor published the guide as late as 1900 with many illustrations, mostly wood engravings, but also some photographs reproduced by halftone.

C. E. Prescott. New-York, Its Past and Present, Compiled for the Exclusive Use of the Traveling Public.
New York: Published by the Mercantile Publishing Co., No. 1 Park Place, 1874

This volume, with “St. Nicholas” (Hotel) stamped on the cover, has roughly the same text by Mr. Prescott as in the 1872 volume.

Robert Macoy. Centennial/Illustrated/How to See New York and Its Environs.
New York: Robert Macoy, Publisher, No. 4 Barclay Street [1875].

Profusely illustrated with well-done wood engravings, this 108-page guide would be a model for the genre but for showing a completed Brooklyn Bridge eight years before it opened. Macoy contrasts Broadway, “a marvel” of “palatial ediﬁces” and the “better classes of society,” with the Bowery, the corresponding road on the eastern side, which “represents the people, with a large admixture of the Teutonic element” with their “Gardens and Bier Halls” and shows “how quickly various nationalities ﬁnd a place among us and move along peacefully in pursuit of business or pleasure.” He notes that on the Bowery it is common to see signs saying “Broadway Goods at Bowery Prices.”

J. J. Burnier. Guide du Français a New York, Brooklyn et les Environs [&] Al-manach Français pour l’anneé 1880 avec les Adresses des Resi-dents Français, Suisses, Belges, Canadiens, etc. . . .
New York: C. Roussel, Administrateur-Gerant, 149 Bleecker St., [1880].

A remarkable survivor, as this guide and almanac for the French-speaking residents of New York City would not have seen wide circulation in its day. It was not printed on good paper, and the ﬁrst 48 pages are heavily browned.

The book has a directory of French-speaking New York City residents from France, Switzerland, Belgium, and French Canada.

F. Hastings Bryant. The Visitors’ and Boarders’ Guide to New York City and its In-stitutions, Best Hotels, Boarding, and Apartment Houses.
New York: New York News Company, 20 Beekman Street, [1881].

While it was common for guides to list hotels, it was unusual to list boarding houses. The guide states that only houses of the “HIGHEST RESPECTABILITY” were included. Most common was for the boarding houses to specify “gentlemen only” or “families or gentlemen” or “gentleman and wife,” but others did not specify. For young women by themselves, choices were fewer, but one option was 27 Washington Square North, a boarding home for young women, under the direction of the “Ladies Christian Union.”

Der Deutsche Führer durch New York. [The German Guide through New York.]
New York: Amermon Corporation, 93 Fifth Avenue, [1929].

A guide in German, long after the heyday of German immigration to New York. Many illustrations (some of which are real photographs; some of the buildings are drawings) and a map.

A Visitor’s Guide to the City of New York on the Occasion of the Return of Admiral Dewey.
New York: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1899

This small guide contains much information, including a description of Fifth Avenue and a listing of the prominent people residing there, with their addresses. Of the 80 pages, 24 list the Boarding Houses of New York and Brooklyn.

Ernest Ingersoll. A Week in New York: Rand McNally & Co.’s Illustrated Guide to the American Metropolis.
New York & Chicago: 1891

A substantial and comprehensive guide of 328 pages, using line drawings and halftone photographs. It covers everything from “Arrival in New York” to “Getting about the City” to “Theatres and other Amusements,” “Racing and Athletic Sports,” and many other topics. Besides a chapter on Brooklyn, there is information about Seaside Resorts and some towns in Westchester, New Jersey, and Staten Island.

Foster & Reynolds. New York Standard Guide: New York The Metropolis of the Western World.
New York: Foster & Reynolds, [1909].

Rand McNally Guide to New York City and Environs. Edition of 1929.
New York & Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1929

The predominant low-cost tourist guides for the ﬁrst decades of the 20th century were the New York Standard Guide and Rand McNally’s Handy Guide. The 1909 edition of the Standard Guide has a remarkable panoramic view of lower Manhattan. By 1913 (and probably earlier), it was gone. The Standard Guide was more focused on signiﬁcant buildings all over Manhattan and very tall buildings. The 1905 Rand McNally’s Handy Guide appears to be a revised version of Rand McNally’s A Week in New York and provides a more general introduction to New York City, with chapters on Transportation, Amusements, Parks and Museums, etc., followed by a “Tour of the City.” By 1929, the Rand McNally New York Guide was more similar to the Standard Guide, with more photographs and less text, but less emphasis on lower Manhattan.