In 1670, Daniel Denton, the son of a Presbyterian minister transplanted from England, painted a pristine portrait of newly named New York as a “terrestrial Canaan” ripe for manifest destiny.
Tourists and settlers in the New World would be safe, he wrote confidently in what is believed to be the first English-language guidebook to the city, because “a Divine Hand makes way for them by removing or cutting off the Indians, either by wars one with the other, or by some raging mortal disease.”
By the 19th century, though, as a new exhibition titled “Wish You Were Here” at the Grolier Club in Midtown Manhattan suggests, guidebooks no longer included disturbing endorsements of wanton Native American genocide. In addition to extolling the virtues of the city and its environs, these new Baedeker-style guides featured tips on how to survive among the natives, new New Yorkers and fellow travelers.
Ranging from Samuel Latham Mitchill’s “The Picture of New York” (1807) to a 1940 map of average apartment rents by block (the luxe category is $100-a-month and up), the exhibition includes E. Idell Zeisloft’s “The New Metropolis,” which celebrates the consolidation in 1898 of what became the five boroughs, as well as Moses King’s comprehensive “Handbooks” and charming narratives from the Works Progress Administration’s.
The original German travel publisher, Karl Baedeker, never produced a guide to New York, but the exhibition and an illustrated accompanying catalog include “view books” of indelible photographs and guides devoted to specific buildings, neighborhoods and cuisines.
“Guidebooks are an unparalleled window on the development of the city,” Mark D. Tomasko writes in the accompanying catalog. Tomasko, a historian and researcher who lives in Brooklyn, lent most of the 130 items in the exhibition.
“The Lions of New York: Being a Guide to Objects of Interest in and Around the Great Metropolis,” published in 1853, warns visitors: “If anyone asks you to go with him to witness ‘sport’ — that is, gambling — you will know he is a thief. Gambling, as practiced here, is simply stealing — there is no chance about it. Marked cards, loaded diced, fraudulent faro-boxes, and the like, all contrived expressly that the dealer or banker may win whenever he chooses, are the stock in trade of the swindlers who call themselves ‘sportsmen.’”
“Redfield’s Traveler’s Guide to the City of New York,” from 1871, cautions, “Never exchange your greenbacks for anyone’s check, no matter how large a balance may seem to be in your favor” or “no matter how much distress the party may appear to suffer who wants it.”
Decades later, in 1931, “Nightlife: Vanity Fair’s Intimate Guide to New York After Dark” by Charles G. Shaw all but implores its readers to avoid “cab joints” — houses of prostitution to which they are steered by taxi drivers and which, he acknowledges, “the unwitting stranger will often mistake for honest speakeasies.” He adds: ‘‘Unless, of course, you relish paying thirty odd dollars for a quart of fake champagne and being swindled generally from the moment you check your hat, until, protesting the size of the bill, you are kicked into the night.”
An even more intimate manual from 1939, “New York Behind the Scenes,” advises men to wear a hat (“only college boys, errand boys and nuts don’t”) and, after they order in a side street or Greenwich Village cabaret, to “tip the headwaiter and ask him to introduce you to a chorine.”
Tomasko started collecting New York books, maps, atlases and pamphlets the day before Christmas in 1969 when he came across an 1895 edition of “King’s Photographic Views of New York: A Souvenir Companion to King’s Handbook of New York City.” The views provided a perspective unavailable in most other guides.
“I was fascinated,” Tomasko said. “It started my New York City collecting, documenting the physical growth and development of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries. Guidebooks, view books, photo books, maps, real estate atlases, directories, building brochures and prospectuses, municipal reports, and a wide variety of ephemera were all items I sought.”
Eventually, he accumulated several thousand, covering 1800 to 1950.
“In the early years I would guess residents were as significant a market as visitors,” Tomasko said.
He said he was surprised by two things: the lack of guides in the 1830s after the growth in New York traffic generated by the Erie Canal, and the dearth of guidebooks in German (while there are some in Spanish and other languages).
Some of the books deftly describe the city’s neighborhoods. Others are rich in technical detail, listing ministers, commercial enterprises and even import duties. Still others steer sightseers to historical walking tours and to individual destinations like the Crystal Palace, the Astor Library and Delmonico’s Hotel.
Tomasko said the Grolier Club is a particularly suitable venue to display New York books, prints and documents. Among the club’s early members was William Loring Andrews, the artist and librarian who published exquisite volumes on the city’s history.
Wish You Were Here
Through May 10, the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, Manhattan; 212-838-6690; grolierclub.org.
Sam Roberts is an obituaries reporter for The Times, writing mini-biographies about the lives of remarkable people.
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