Locating the Manhattan housing market: GIS evidence for 1880-1910

Abstract

There is a dearth of systematic information about the historical New York City housing market. We present a new sample containing rental price and characteristic data for 10,715 Manhattan units which was collected from historical newspapers for the period 1880–1910. These units were geolocated to the historical map of Manhattan Island to explore their geographic coverage, using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. We use this new sample to plot the evolution of the location and quality of available Manhattan housing units and the development of new neighborhoods. This complements existing research on the growth of New York City and the evolution of the ethnic composition of neighborhoods across Census years, as we show information at annual frequency during this time of high growth for the city.