This interesting map from 1856 shows the slips and swamps of that used to exist on Manhattan and bits of Brooklyn, known as New York and Long Island respectively in 1856.

Back it the early days of New York, Manhattan was narrower, swampy and full of things called slips, narrow slivers of harbor left for boats as landfill extended the coastline. This map from D. T. Valentine’s Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, currently on display at the Boston Public Library’s American Revolution exhibition We Are One: Mapping the Road from Revolution to Independence, maps the “made and swampland” of New York City and a bit of Brooklyn (then Long Island) in 1856.

Check out the full article on Untapped Cities for a little analysis and commentary on the map. The map is available for download in full resolution at the Boston Public Library.

When Adrianna, a display artist, and Craig, a teacher and editor, bought their apartment, it was a bare, white, and bright space that felt outdated and in need of change. To bring the home to life, they reconfigured the layout—taking down and putting up walls, exposing the brick behind the plaster, and gutting the bathroom. But even with all this change, Adrianna and Craig still appreciated a lot of the existing design elements in the space.

Check out the accompanying post for more details on the space of the family of four sharing a tiny 500-square-foot apartment in Alphabet City.

New York restaurant critic Adam Platt is a taco purist. His daughter Penelope, however, is more impressed with creative cuisine. The two recently set out in NYC to pit traditional tacos against modern Mexican fare.

When it comes to time-tested Mexican food, it’s hard to beat Taco Mix, a bustling Queens eatery that prides itself on real tacos and specializes in slow-roasted al pastor. Mexican immigrant Filadelfo Sanchez opened the restaurant 1990, and to this day, it’s still family-run. Meanwhile at the Black Ant on the Lower East Side, founder Jorge Guzman and chef Mario Hernandez do things a little differently. The modern Mexican restaurant builds on its culinary heritage with innovative twists on ancient foods, like grasshopper-encrusted shrimp and tacos with miso-adobo beets.

They probably should have visited more than two places, but watch the short video to see how the trendy taco place compares with the traditional.