(NEW YORK CITY) Rayner Robert J (lithographer) View of Broad

Sale 2540 - Lot 383

Price Realized: $ 1,250

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000

(NEW YORK CITY.) Rayner, Robert J. (lithographer). View of Broadway in the City of New York with the Proposed Elevated Rail-Way Invented by John Randel, Junr. C.E. Large tinted lithograph with partial hand-coloring. 20 1/2x25 3/4 inches sheet size, ample margins; backed on verso with a 19th-century German religious heliograph, closed tear crossing the sheet, other light surface soiling. New York: G. Hayward, 1848

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Looking north up Broadway from Fulton Street, St. Paul's Chapel, The Astor House and other hotels, Smith's Segar Store, Genin Hatters, Barnum's Museum, and City Hall are all plainly seen. However, the focus of this broadside is not entirely on the places represented here, but rather a means of conveyance to these places from distant parts of the city. Some 20 years before an elevated railway was built in New York, surveyor and city engineer John Randel proposed his vision for an elevated track system running a great length of Manhattan above Broadway. The transverse section below the main view here illustrates and describes the construction of Randel's system, as well as a plan of underground chambers for water mains, gas mains, garbage pits, and sewer vaults. A curious and unfortunately unbuilt luxury of Randel's plan is a "sofa elevator" rising from the street to a ladies' pavilion on each platform landing "for resting & meeting of friends who wish to ride in the same car". Very rare with only two copies located at New York City institutions and last seen at auction in 1918.