The Museum's Map collection is geographically centered on the five boroughs of New York City and its environs, and depict the landscape from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The maps range in variety from street maps, land auction maps, cadastral maps showing the boundaries and owners of lots of land, maps of city parks, transit maps, and topographic maps. Many of the maps are often hand-drawn and/or hand-colored. Some of the highlights include an 1897 printing of a “Map of the original grants of village lots from the Dutch West India Company to the inhabitants of New-Amsterdam (now New-York) lying below the present line of Wall Street” as they were in 1658; Egbert Viele’s “Topographical Map of the City of New York Showing Original Water Courses and Made Land,” 1865, which is still consulted today by architects and contractors when planning construction in the city; and David Longworth’s “Actual map and comparative plans showing 88 years growth of the City of New York” comparing the view of the city in 1729 to the city in 1817, at the time the Longworth map was printed.