The “Plan showing the boundaries of the great Conflagration of New Orleans on the 21st of March, 1788” is a historical map that illustrates the extent of the devastating fire that swept through New Orleans. Created in the late 1800s, this facsimile map highlights the settled parts of the town with darker shading and indicates where the fire started and which buildings escaped the blaze. The map provides valuable insights into the urban layout of New Orleans at the time and the impact of the fire on the city’s development.

Lower Manhattan has effectively been America’s town square since its discovery in 1524. Virtually every major event of local, national and global significance has played out in some way on this stage. Some have been forgotten and some have been transformative in our culture and many have fallen between. This is both a project in urban archeology and a way of describing the city over time in a printed map. The map captures the multiple and overlapping stories that are woven throughout our city’s life in a single document. It embraces America’s history as the museums, monuments and memorials that dot its streetscape do.   It highlights many of the concerns, events and places that the people who lived, fought, worked and visited here thought were important at their moment in time.   It takes another look at the issues that they were preoccupied with and how they solved them:  their politics, religion, social protest, health and safety, commerce, disasters and defense, scandals and crime, education, publications, art and culture, parades and celebrations, architecture and engineering. It encapsulates the events that shaped the physical and cultural landscape within the changing geography at the water’s edge. And it raises questions that need to be considered as we plan a more resilient city in our future.