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Georeferencing & Accuracy
Radio Row’s four 1923 Sanborn sheets are registered to WGS-84 at sub-meter accuracy — anchored only to features that still exist.
Sanborn sheetPtsRMSEMethod
10 (SE)40.52 mdirect · Church / Broadway / Trinity
14 (NE)40.78 mdirect
9 (SW)70.74 mtie-registered
13 (NW)60.87 mtie-registered
Direct sheets are anchored to surviving control points; adjacent sheets tie-registered through their shared overlap. Affine fit in EPSG:3857; RMSE in meters.
Trinity Church is the first control point in the Sheet 10 file: 40.70807° N, 74.01187° W.
Supplemental data
⇩ Download all (.zip)
Each file lists the source-image pixel coordinates and WGS-84 lat/lng of every control point, the fitted affine transform, and its RMSE — enough to reproduce or independently check the placement.
Sources & Credits
The New York Globe
Rogers, Jason. America’s Oldest Daily Newspaper: The New York Globe. New York: The New York Globe, 1918. Internet Archive.
Lee, James Melvin. “History of The Globe.” In Rogers, America’s Oldest Daily Newspaper: The New York Globe, 1918.
Rogers, Jason. Newspaper Building. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918.
Rogers, Jason. Fundamentals of Newspaper Building. New York, 1919.
Jason Rogers papers. Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Finding aid.
Sperr, Percy Loomis. “Manhattan: Washington Street – Dey Street.” 2 June 1932. Milstein Division, The New York Public Library (item 724095F). Licensed for this project — Photo by Percy Loomis Sperr ©Milstein Division, The New York Public Library.
In the Missourian
“People Want Humor, Jason Rogers Says.” The University Missourian (Columbia, MO), 30 Apr. 1915, p. 1. Chronicling America (LCCN sn89066313), Library of Congress.
“Service Only Pays, Jason Rogers Says.” The University Missourian (Columbia, MO), 24 Sept. 1915, p. 1. Chronicling America (LCCN sn89066313), Library of Congress.
Champs and Chumps
Ripley, Robert L. “Champs and Chumps.” New York Globe, 19 Dec. 1918.
Ripley, Robert L. “Champs and Chumps.” Buffalo Evening News, 18 Dec. 1918, p. 14 (syndicated). Fulton History.
Buffalo Evening News, 18 Dec. 1918, p. 1 (front page). Fulton History.
“Believing It — or Not — for 100 Years.” The Daily Cartoonist, 19 Dec. 2018, dailycartoonist.com.
The 1924 Full-Page Ad
Rogers, Jason. “Do You Want a Clean and Purposeful Newspaper Like the Old Globe?” Advertisement. The New York Times, 10 June 1924, p. 15. Public-domain text, reset by pbdot.
American Minerva №1
The American Minerva, vol. 1, no. 1. New York: George Bunce & Co., 9 Dec. 1793. Facsimile (plate “Page 12”) in Rogers, America’s Oldest Daily Newspaper, 1918.
Washington, George. “Fifth Annual Message to Congress.” 3 Dec. 1793. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School; Founders Online, National Archives.
Maps & the Digital Twin
Sanborn Map Company. Insurance Maps of the City of New York, Borough of Manhattan, Vol. 1. 1923, sheets 9–10 & 13–14. Library of Congress (sanborn06116_046).
Historical building photographs: Courtesy Municipal Archives, City of New York (NYC Department of Records & Information Services).
Sanborn-to-3D building reconstruction method after Miller, H. J., N. Xiao, M. Lewis, et al. “From Historical Maps to Lived Experiences: A Community-Engaged Approach to 3D Urban Modeling of Neighborhoods Prior to Urban Highways and Urban Renewal.” International Journal of Digital Humanities, 2026, doi.org/10.1007/s42803-026-00122-2.
Aerial imagery: NYC OTI (CC BY 4.0). Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO.
See also: 1940s.nyc — the City’s 1940 tax photographs mapped block by block.
See also: OldNYC — the New York Public Library’s Milstein photograph collection mapped by street corner (a great many of them Percy Loomis Sperr’s).
Credits & Thanks
Historical photographs Courtesy Municipal Archives, City of New York — with special thanks to the NYC Research (Records) team.
Source volume from the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University (Seymour B. Durst Old York Library).
Additional scans courtesy of the Library of Congress (Chronicling America; Sanborn Maps), the Internet Archive, Fulton History, and the syndication research of The Daily Cartoonist.
Digitized, transcribed, and set by the pbdot team, with Prof.dottie.
The Master Plan
1 The Globe 🌐
2 Radio Row 📻
3 The First El 🚂
4 Newspaper Row 📰
5 1793 Rewind ⏪🦉🫂
opening the Globe…
loading the street…