Tips from Our Preservation Team on Researching Your NYC Building
On Village Preservation’s Resources for Neighborhood Research page, we’ve assembled links to online directories, photo archives, maps, and more from city, state, library, educational, and other organizations — including our own — all for your research endeavors. However, navigating through numerous links, maps, and archives can be daunting, especially for those new to the process. But fear not, our research and preservation team recently hosted a workshop to guide you through this journey. Today, we’ll offer you a few insights from this workshop, focusing on a seemingly simple yet deceptively challenging question: When was your building constructed?
A great starting point is to look up your building (or any building) in the New York City Zoning & Land Use (ZoLa) Map. Each building listed will have a dedicated page containing general information such as block and lot numbers, square footage, and year built.
Additionally, the ZoLa Map provides a link to the building’s page on BIS (Building Information System), a highly valuable database showing historical permits for the building and any other addresses it may have been associated with in the past. Village Preservation has a past article that delves into the intricacies of the BIS permit codes.
The ZoLa Map will provide a year built date but it may not always accurate. A good tip is to double-check the date provided with a second source. Some buildings in New York City are designated landmarks, either as part of a Historic District or as an individual landmark, which makes it significantly easier to research them. Resources like the New York City Landmarks Permit Application Finder Map or Village Preservation’s own maps can used to find the year constructed, the name of the builder, architectural style, and more.
if your building is not an a historic district or a landmark, information about its construction can be found on the Office for Metropolitan Historic Permit Search (which is only available for buildings in Manhattan constructed after 1900.) Alternatively our preservation team suggests exploring the NYC Fire Insurance, Topographic, and Property Maps available from the New York Public Library or browsing through the archive of the Columbia University Builders and Buyers Guide.
However, there is much more to discover about a building beyond its construction date. In the workshop, our preservation team discusses various aspects such as methods for accessing historic images, how to learn about past uses of a building, and much more. Our team has also compiled a resource list of helpful websites to assist you on your research journey.
Click here to watch the program and here to watch the more focused tutorial.