White Here Is New York

SANBORN MAP COMPANY: Insurance Maps of the City of New York. Borough of Manhattan,

New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1909-1930 [updated to 1984]. Volumes 1-8, 10-12 ((i.e. the complete mapping of Manhattan) in 17 volumes, large folio (25 x 21 inches). Decorative calligraphic titles, indices, 17 key maps and 1,530 full-page maps (847 with extensive hand-coloured pasted-on correction slips, as called for). Contemporary canvas with red morocco corners, title labels on upper covers and spines, 14 volumes with protective canvas over-binding (spine of vol. 11 North detached). A COMPLETE MANHATTAN SET OF SANBORN FIRE INSURANCE ATLASES WITH A PROFUSION OF OVERLAYED UPDATES. These atlases published by the Sanborn Map Company, containing a total of approximately 1,500 maps, represent the most complete and detailed cartographical record of Manhattan Island in the twentieth century. Each atlas is devoted to a particular district of the city, with the Manhattan set published between 1909 and 1930. Remarkably, through a system of hand-done pasted on overlays, each volume was checked, and updated every six months. The current set includes all updates showing construction and changes to the city updated to 1984. Virtually the entire physical evolution of the city during the 20th century is therefore laid down in enormous detail. The result is an invaluable, almost archaeological, record of Manhattan through the decades of its most explosive growth. These seventeen volumes represent the Sanborn Map Company's total production for Manhattan Island. Sanborn atlases are of great rarity, and it is virtually unheard of for such a large and comprehensive collection to be offered for sale, let along one with such extensive updates. Insurance maps originated in London in the eighteenth century in response to the need felt by the large fire insurance companies and underwriters for accurate, up-to-date and detailed information about the buildings they were insuring. The form reached its zenith in the United States with the work of the Sanborn Map Company. Sanborn fire insurance maps are the most valuable of all cartographical records for the development of urban America. The earliest surviving Sanborn atlas in the Library of Congress is of Boston, 1867, and was prepared specifically for the Aetna Insurance Company. Sanborn maps and atlases were subsequently prepared for more than twelve thousand United States cities and towns. But virtually no maps or atlases dated prior to 1883 survive in the Library of Congress or elsewhere, and those subsequent to that date are also very rare and seldom offered for sale on the open market. This is due to the very small number of each map or atlas that was published. These specialized but invaluable maps were prepared for the exclusive use of fire insurance companies and underwriters. The Library of Congress catalogue for fire insurance maps (p.6) notes that "Sanborn employees colored the maps by hand, because there were usually fewer than twenty orders for a single sheet." Each sheet measures 21 by 25 inches and was drawn to an impressively large scale of 50 feet to one inch, with colour applied by hand. Every existing building was shown to scale, its construction material and use were noted, as well as fire-proofing, thickness of walls. Elevators, chimneys, fire alarm boxes, hydrants, sprinkler systems, and a wealth of other detail. The information was gleaned by Sanborn's surveyors from public records, as well as from laborious filed work. The task of updating the maps was continuous, and corrections in the form of paste-on slips were issued at regular intervals. Over the course of decades of development, slips were laid over slips, the maps finally presenting a sort of cartographical archaeological record, with layers of a city's growth carefully preserved. As a result of this expensive on-going labor, each Sanborn map cost between12 and200 by the 1930s. This meant that for an area the size of Manhattan, the cost of a complete set of approximately 1500 maps was prohibitive to all but the most dedicated user. Production of the large-scale maps of the type offered here ceased in 1962, and the company has since concentrated on publishing black and white photo-revision atlases on a greatly reduced scale. The atlases were arranged so that each area was shown twice (on two facing sheets described in our collation as paired maps). Each set of these paired maps was assigned a shared plate number and consisted of a black and white skeleton map which showed in outline each building as of the date of publication, with a facing corrections map, which showed the same outlines, but with each building color-coded to show building materials and other details. It was on these latter sheets that the evolution of the city was recorded through the use of the paste-on slips discussed above. Periodically, when development overtook the ability of a sheet to reflect dramatic change, supplemental sheets were added to the atlas. These were usually issued without an accompanying skeleton map, and are therefore described as 'single sheets' in our collation. The Library of Congress records three editions for Sanborn's atlases of New York: 1890- 1902, 1903-1919, 1908-1952. The set offered here corresponds to the Library of Congress's third edition, but with important differences that are discussed below. The volumes offered here were initially published separately between 1909 and 1930. Each volume was periodically re- copyrighted after a considerable number of corrections had been recorded, with the new copyright date laid down on the original title page on a paste-on slip. Volume Seven (North), for example, shows a part of the Upper West Side. It was originally published in 1912, but so many corrections had been incorporated by 1940 that it was re-copyrighted at that time. There was a third re-copyright in 1978. These exhaustive corrections were effected on a regular basis, the date being dutifully noted on a Corrections Record sheet. In the case of Volume 7 (North) the corrections continued until 1984. Thus this volume is listed below in the following manner: Volume 7 (north) 1912-1940-1978 (corrections to 1984). A comparison of our volume 7 (north) with the copy in the Library of Congress shows that the LC volume 7 (north) was re-copyrighted only once, in 1951. The LC copy contains 104 pages, while ours contains 106. Both contain 49 paired maps (98 pages). Ours contains 4 new single maps (dated 1938) that show the Henry Hudson Parkway, which was constructed long after the original publication date of 1912. It is not clear which - if any - of these new maps are in the LC copy, but it is clear that the LC copy, re- copyrighted only once, contains far fewer corrections than our copy, re- copyrighted as recently as 1978, and with corrections to 1984. This comparison illustrates the uniqueness of each existing Sanborn atlas, a hand-made quality that is otherwise unknown in the history of published cartography. Due to the human factor - the need for constant, careful up- dating - it is doubtful that any two existing Sanborn atlases are identical. Our set of atlases would appear to be the most complete possible record of the great twentieth century building boom that transformed the face of a large part of New York City. [With three additional volumes related to the Bronx:] SANBORN MAP COMPANY. Insurance Maps of the City of New York. Borough of the Bronx. New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1914-1915. 3 volumes (Volumes 13-15 from the City of New York series), large folio (25 x 21 inches). Decorative calligraphic titles, indices, 3 key maps and 310 full-page maps (209 with extensive hand- coloured pasted-on correction slips, as called for). Contemporary canvas with red morocco corners, each with protective canvas over-binding. A full collation of the entire set is available on request.

Details

E B White: Here is New York, Little Bookroom, Januar 2000 ISBN: 1892145022
Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, E.B. White's stroll around Manhattan remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America's foremost literary figures. The New York Times has named Here is New York one of the ten best books ever written about the metropolis, and The New Yorker calls it the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city.

NEW 180X10X119 186 mm x 135 mm x 11 mm

[SW: United States - Mid Atlantic - New York City]

Details

Cohen, John: There is no eye. John Cohen. Photographs. New York: PowerHouse Books, 2001. ISBN: 157687107X
Umschl. gering berieben. - Famed musician John Cohen's vision transcends history even as it distills the spirit of a period and a place, be it the Peruvian Andes, Kentucky bluegrass country, the Gospel churches of Brooklyn, the streets of New Haven, or the Beat Generations' Greenwich Village. THERE IS NO EYE, Cohen's first monograph culled from his lifetime of experience and travels, is a guided tour of the intersecting worlds of Andean textile makers, and seminal artists and poets such as Robert Frank, Red Grooms, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and more, with renowned American Roots and Blues musicians Roscoe Holcomb, Doc Watson, Muddy Waters, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, The Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe, and Bob Dylan among others. - From the set of Pull My Daisy to Cohen's own farm in upstate New York, his lyrical stories of the people and cultures he has encountered over the past five decades augment his quiet, stirring photographs. - "You can look at John Cohen's book and see through very familiar eyes: the New York City eyes of Helen Levitt and Walker Evans, Evans' country eyes, the highway eyes of Robert Frank, even Margaret Bourke-White's doubting eyes in Holiness churches....John Cohen's argument is that the picture exists outside of the photographer's intentions, or even his desires....Up against these eyeless pictures, those of Evans, Frank, Levitt, and Bourke-White can seem almost propagandistic. That is, they make arguments; you are aware that the photographer wants to tell you something, to convince you of something, to accept a certain point of view. Here there is no point of view. There is something else; I don't know what to call it, so I won't try.". Greil Marcus. ISBN 157687107X - , ISBN-13: 9781576871072

199 S. mit sehr zahlr. Abb. Gebundene Ausgabe mit Schutzumschlag.

[SW: John Cohen, Photographie, Porträtfotografie]

Details

SMITH, Kiki (b.1954); and Mei-Mei BERSSENBRUGGE (b.1947): Endocrinology.

[West Islip, New York]: Universal Limited Art Editions, [1997]. Large square folio. (18 inches square). 19 leaves of creamy-brown, translucent hand-made Nepalese paper, comprised of: front blank, title (verso blank), 28 numbered pages of text on 15 leaves, 1p. limitation/colophon (verso blank), rear blank. The title and text printed on opaque white paper, roughly cut into slips and mounted in position. 20 photolithographed images printed in blue by Smith, based on cells, systems or bones from within the human body, 4 pages with pencil additions by the artist. Original boards with cloth joints, photogravure portraits of the poet and artist with a Japanese tissue overlay mounted on the covers. Housed in a custom dark blue chemise and morocco backed folding box. The book as art: limited edition of 40 copies signed by the artist and poet, this numbered 29 Artist and poet and language and imagery combine to produce a powerful work of unexpected juxtaposition. Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge's poetry is here set to imagery by Kiki Smith in a wonderful hand-made work of book art which examines the physiological power of the body. "Among Smith's most important statements on the body's internal systems is Endocrinology ... a collaboration with the poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and a masterpiece in the modern tradition of the illustrated book. This elaborate project took several years to complete ... Choosing the theme of the endocrine and lymphatic systems, [Smith] made paper cutouts of the relevant vital organs based on images in an anatomy coloring book. Berssenbrugge responded with a poem redolant of the emotions controlled by these images. Sinuously shaped, evoking foliage as much as organs of the body, Smith's pancreas, kidneys, spleen and ovaries dance across the pages in a brilliantly syncopated layout of images and text ... Smith's approach to designing each spread was physical and sculptural: when proofs of her prints were pulled, she cut out Bersenbrugge's typeset poem into strips and moved them around on the sheets, along with other bits of paper featuring her own hand-written words, to determine the placement of the text. She liked the casual look of the cut up text and decided to retain the collage element rather than print the poem directly on the pages. The tension this creates - between hand-drawn and printed writing, between textured creamy hand- made paper and stiff white commercial paper, parallel the tension implicit in her deadpan, unsqueamish presentation of anatomical motifs" (Wendy Weitman, Kiki Smith: Prints, Books & Things, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2003, pp. 19-20).

Details