The Merchants’ Association Street and Distance Map from 1906:

Each square is half a mile on one side, so you can easily figure out point-to-point distances (pre-Google Maps), at least within Manhattan and the West Bronx.
A few notes: the IRT Subway opened in 1904 and is shown here with both the Broadway and Lenox Avenue branches, but without the Brooklyn extension and the Bronx extension limited to two stations. The Brooklyn Bridge is here, of course, under its old name “The New York and Brooklyn Bridge”; the Williamsburg Bridge, opened in 1903, is shown; but the Manhattan Bridge, started in 1901 and finished in 1909, is not shown. The north branch of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (now the PATH) is represented by just its tunnel; the railroad opened in 1908. The downtown branch is not shown. Most of the ferries across the Hudson Rover are named after the railroads operating them from their New Jersey terminals. And Roosevelt (“Welfare”), Randall, and Ward’s islands in the East River are covered with services that society wanted kept far away, including a Workhouse – effectively a prison for being poor – that operated until the 1930s.

You must be logged in to post a comment.