In 1797 the Common Council commissioned surveyor Casimir Goerck and a partner, Joseph F. Mangin, to prepare an official map of the city. Goerck, who had long been one of the city's leading surveyors, died in 1798. Work on the map was carried forward by Mangin, but not very speedily. Among other things, in 1801 and 1802 Mangin was busy working with John McComb, Jr. on the design for City Hall. When Mangin finally delivered the map, in 1803, the Council found it was not what they had bargained for. In Mangin's own words, it was not "the plan of the city such as it is, but such as it is to be."

In addition to "correcting" the lines of some existing streets, Mangin provided his own somewhat eccentric street layout for the undeveloped land above the present Houston Street to a point just north of today's Union Square. For the most part Mangin simply expanded the previously existing Delancey Farm, Bayard West Farm and Stuyvesant Farm street grids. But since these grids all ran at different angles, there were many awkward intersections. It was also unclear how these grids, if carried farther north, would mesh with Goerck's 1796 layout of the Common Lands, which was already the basis of numerous property transfers and leases. The Common Council tried to make some use of Mangin's plan but, faced with widespread protests from property owners, soon gave up and disavowed it. Nevertheless a few of the streets shown in the plan were eventually adopted, including Mangin Street and Goerck Street. The mess surrounding the Mangin-Goerck Plan was among the factors that led, in 1807, to the creation of the State commission that produced the 1811 Commissioners' Plan.

A village on the Bloomingdale Road in the vicinity of the present West 125th Street. Its streets were laid out by the surveyor Adolphus Loss in 1806, five years before the adoption of the Commissioners' Plan. The principal street was Manhattan Street (1), which is now part of West 125th Street. Paralleling it on the northeast were Lawrence, Schieffelin and Byrd Streets. Paralleling it on the southwest, between Bloomingdale Road and the Hudson River, were Buckley and Hemlock Streets. Running southeast from Bloomingdale Road were Blackberry and Hamilton Streets. Perpendicular to Manhattan Street were (starting at the Hudson River) Cove and Effingham Streets, Bloomingdale Road, and Phineas and Edward Streets. In 1836 the Commissioners' Plan was amended to incorporate Manhattan and Lawrence Streets and part of the Bloomingdale Road. Although numerous structures had once stood along them, the remainder of Mahattanville's streets had vanished by the 1890s.

For a few decades in the 19th Century Manhattanville rivaled Harlem as the most important settlement in upper Manhattan. It was the site of Manhattan College as well as a large paint factory, and was served by both rail and stagecoach lines. See Eric Washington's Manhattanville: Old Heart of West Harlem (Arcadia, 2002).

Until the 1840s nearly all of the city's food was sold through public markets. They continued to play a major role in New York's food supply until the widespread use of commercial refrigeration around the turn of the last century. The earliest markets were located along the shore, where they could be supplied by farmers' market boats (see Wharves, Piers and Slips). As the city grew, the markets were housed in substantial buildings, which were also the business addresses of the merchants who leased stalls there. Since the markets were centers of community life, they also determined the locations of other public facilities, hence the Jefferson Market Courthouse and the the Tompkins Market Armory. There was a revival of interest in public retail markets around 1914 in reaction to alleged profiteering by food wholesalers, and again during the LaGuardia administration to supplant "squalid and unsanitary" outdoor pushcart markets. Parts of two of the La Guardia-era markets are still in use. Most of our information on early markets is from Thomas F. De Voe's The Market Book, published in 1862. Information on more recent markets is based on articles in the New York Times Archives and available reports of the city's now-defunct Department of Public Markets.

This important early map shows New York as it was in 1695. It is the sole source for some of the street names listed by Post and Stokes, but its labeling of some of these streets is probably incorrect. The plan was drawn by the Reverend John Miller, who had been chaplain to the city's British garrison. At the time, Britain and France were at war, and the plan showed the city's fortifications in detail On his return voyage to England Miller's ship was captured by French privateers. He had to throw all his original drawings and notes overboard to keep them from falling into enemy hands. Miller later covertly redrew the plan from memory in a French prison. It would not be surprising if, in doing so, he had misplaced a few street names. Miller labels the present William Street south of the Wall as Kings Street, although it was known before and after as Smith Street. Miller's Little Queen Street was known before and after as King Street. The street Miller labels as Smith Street is the one shown on later maps as Little Queen Street, the present Cedar Street.