Pictorial map of Manhattan including portions of surrounding areas including Queens, Jersey City, and Hoboken. Famous buildings depicted include the Empire State Building, Flatiron Building, City Hall, Metropolitan Museum, Grant's Tomb, Chrysler Building, and Grand Central Station. The 1939 World's Fair is shown in Queens. Pictorial genre illustrations enliven the streets, including couples strolling, mothers pushing carriages, a man watching a cabaret dancer near "village clubs," and a man delivering packages. The decorative border contains the city's initials "NY" and four views: Broadway, Fifth Avenue, Wall Street, and the Statue of Liberty.

Pictorial maps were often issued as promotional items in the mid 20th century, and this one was produced by the R.H. Macy department store in honor of the New York World's Fair. A cartouche appears in the lower right surrounded by floral decoration, and flanked by a peg-legged pilgrim and cherub, with the playful inscription, "A CHART/ neither too LITERAL nor too/ EMOTIONAL, shewing [sic.] the city/ NEW YORK/ replete with the wondrous Specta-/ cles, Mysteries, and Pastimes of the/ natives...Done in the year of the/ NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR-1939./ Done by the New York Artist Russell Patterson for R. H. Macy & Co., Inc., 34th Street and Broadway, New York City, the World's Largest Store, by whom it is copyrighted."

Russell Patterson was an American artist who began a cartooning career after only one year of study. He spent five years studying oil painting under Claude Monet in Paris from 1920 to 1925. Returning to Chicago, he worked as an illustrator for magazines such as Liberty and the Saturday Evening Post and drew the comic strip "Mamie" for United Features Syndicate from 1951 to 1956.

References:

"Russell Patterson." Lambiek Studio. 7 March 2003. http://www.lambiek.net/patterson_russell.htm (6 May 2003).

Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who Was Who in American Art. Madison, Connecticut: Sound View Press, 1985.