For Historians

TimeWalk is built on primary sources — georeferenced maps, tax rolls, parcel surveys, diaries, and period imagery. This page collects our research tools in one place and shows where a historian's eye can make the reconstruction better.

1776 Manhattan building lookup

Every parcel and building we've reconstructed for Revolutionary-era New York — 2,733 structures from the TimeWalk PostGIS database, including those destroyed in the Great Fire of September 1776. Search by name, owner, street, or building type.

… buildings
IDNameOwnerAddressType1776 Fire
Loading building index…

Source: timewalk.1776_nyc_parcels_buildings (Supabase PostGIS). Most names, owners and dates are still unverified — help us fill them in.

Historical maps

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Maps viewer

Georeferenced historical maps, layered on the modern city

 Mw

MapWalk

Walk the map across eras

The map inventory below tracks every historical map we've catalogued for Manhattan — from the 1527 Maggiolo portolan to 20th-century surveys — with cartographer, source repository, and coverage. Click a column to sort.

… maps
Map Year mapped Published Cartographer Source Type
Loading map inventory…

Source: the TimeWalk Manhattan map research inventory. Digitized maps appear in the maps viewer.

Sources, timelines & research

S

Primary sources

The wiki's source index: documents, surveys, imagery, citations

 P

Period pages

Deep dives on each era, cross-referenced with maps and sources

 Hi

DeepTime timelines

Zoomable timelines from the Big Bang to yesterday — submit events with sources

On history.timewalk.live historians can submit events and corrections directly — each submission goes through source validation before it lands on the public timeline.

How to contribute

We need historians. The 1776 building index above has 2,733 structures — but most building names, owners, and construction dates are still unpopulated or unverified. If you work with tax rolls, city directories, church records, insurance surveys, or period correspondence, you can materially improve the reconstruction.
  • Know something about a building? Open an issue with the building ID from the table above and your source.
  • Have a date or event? Submit it on history.timewalk.live — citations required, validation built in.
  • Spot an error anywhere? Corrections are as valuable as additions. Same channels.