Scope and Content Note

Samuel Hollyer's Old New York views were created at the turn of the twentieth century to recall sites and scenes in the city and the Hudson River Valley that had largely disappeared in the previous three centuries. It is unknown by what system and in what quantity Hollyer issued his prints, but they were collected by antiquarians and prominent New Yorkers including J. Clarence Davies, who owned 141 Old New York prints bound into three volumes with letterpress printed title and text pages. The Davies volumes are in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York (Acc. No. 29.100.302 A-C, each with a Davies bookplate by Hollyer), and it is that set that was used to assign the numbers used to arrange the prints in PR 086. The New-York Historical Society prints are disbound and have only the set of title and text pages from volume I (prints 1 through 65). The N-YHS Volume I originals and photocopies, made from the Davies volumes, of the texts in Volumes II and III are filed before the corresponding prints.

The collection is divided into three series, one each for the bound volumes described above. Thereunder, prints in each volume are arranged in an alphabetical order and numbered according to that order. The numbering system continues throughout the three volumes, but each volume is individually alphabetically arranged.

The prints are titled in Hollyer's hand in the margin, and are numbered according to the text pages, which give a paragraph-long description of the location and importance of each site. Many prints have a number written in a different hand in pencil in the lower right corner; this number does not always correspond to the number assigned to the print in the text. Another hand has annotated some of the titles and dates given as that contemporary to the view. These annotations appear in the container list in brackets. Titles in the container list are taken from the published text.

Duplicate prints exist for about twenty percent of the prints, and are housed in a folder at the end of the numerical run of prints.