GUEST: It's an old map of New York, and, uh, my father had it in his, uh, basement for, uh, about 45 years. He had it glued to a large piece of mat board. Around 15 years ago, he came to me and he said, "I, I thought this, this map might have some value, and I want you to have it." So I, uh, I took it and, and I had it restored. He told me that he, he found it in the 1960s. I don't know how much he paid for it, but knowing my father and giving the times, I'm guessing he probably paid very little for it. But he told me he found this wrapped up in a small antiques store in, in Western New York, and it wasn't in very good shape. But I don't think he knew what he really had until many years later. I, I, he once showed me a reference book that identified this map, which indicated it had some value.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm. This is the 1879 Galt and Hoy bird's eye view map of Manhattan and parts adjacent. For my money, it's one of the most important pieces of American cartography from the 19th century. It's absolutely fantastic, well over six feet tall, and it shows, unlike any other mapping of New York from this period, every single building in the city in great detail. The producers, Galt and Hoy, came together as a partnership in 1878, and Henry Hoy was the one who was providing money for the partnership. Producing a view like this, getting an artist like Will Taylor to go around the city and make all of the surveys and notes that he would make and all the drawings, and then eventually give it to a printer, that was considerably expensive work. And it drained the firm of money to the point where Henry Hoy was bankrupted. And so, in 1878, he actually committed suicide, because he was in such a desperate position. The firm continued on for about a year, probably using the money that he had left it to continue the production of this view. So this was finally published in 1879. And it's those sort of tragic circumstances that we think probably contributed to the map's rarity today. In the 1990s, when this first started to get some recognition, there were two known copies in institutional collections, at the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress. Down here is one of the things that I find most fascinating about the map. You can actually see, named on a building here, Galt and Hoy.
GUEST: (gasps)
APPRAISER: It's difficult to read here, but that was their office in 1878. And that, you may recognize, is in the footprint of the World Trade Center.
GUEST: Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER: So that building right there would have been 4 World Trade Center. Now, I told you that in the 1990s, there were two known copies of this. Another copy came up that was held privately, and I was told by a friend of mine who handled this sale that he had framed up that privately held copy and held it for the buyer for about a year. And then finally, they decided to put it in an office. And that office they put it in was at the World Trade Center, and they put it there the week before the September 11 attacks.
GUEST: Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER: So unfortunately, that example was destroyed in the attacks.
GUEST: Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER: And it's one of those in, very tragic circumstances that ties this piece so closely to the history of New York. It's actually in quite a bit better shape than the institutional copies that I've seen.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: The census we've updated a little bit. It's probably one of five or six known examples now. Still not very many. I think if I were to put an auction estimate on this today, in its current condition, I would estimate it at $40,000 to $60,000.
GUEST: (inhales) Wow, I'm, I am, I'm shocked. (laughs) I think my father would, would be very, very pleased and asto... He had a, a good eye, but that, that number is shocking to me. Wow. I had the, the slip to have it restored. It might have been $2,500 or certainly less than $5,000.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: Which I thought at that time, I'm, like, "Oh, my God, what a colossal waste of money."
APPRAISER & GUEST: (both laughing)
