Nieuw Amsterdam around 1662 - currently known as New York City, United StatesSubmitted by MidnightCh1cken t3_11vv76k in nyc
FarPassion8384 t1_jcvdrkz wrote
Love seeing these maps. So weird to imagine NYC as anything except a mega city
This may have been the only time I could afford a downtown apartment
gammison t1_jcwevyu wrote
About 120 years later and inflation from the 1700s is really hard to meaningfully measure but there's a document from the US's first secretary of war where he averaged out his living expenses in New York City in 1785-87.
He spent 215 pounds a year on rent, in today's dollars it's almost exactly 5 grand a month(assuming Knox was denoting things in British pounds sterling, otherwise it's less if he was using New York Pounds, currency in the colonial and early republic period gets weird). On that he rented a house for himself, his brother, his wife, 5 children, two hired servants, one unpaid girl, and two indentured boy servants. The house rent included a stables for two horses. They spent less on the rent than they did on food, which was about 280 2023 dollars a day. They spent just about half of what they paid in rent for the year on wine.
Here's the link.
Edit: If he's using NY Pounds, divide everything by 3 when using an inflation calculator but again inflation doesn't really tell the whole story.
iv2892 t1_jcwkrob wrote
So NYC has always been expensive I see đ
gammison t1_jcwvoiq wrote
I mean he was renting a very large house and inflation doesn't mean a 1:1 correspondence when real prices of goods got cheaper with mass production and there's other economic phenomena going on.
lee1026 t1_jcwpxl6 wrote
Why is someone in 1785 still using British pounds? Shouldn't it be dollars past 1776?
gammison t1_jcwv8dg wrote
US Dollars were not the established principle currency until 1792. Before and for decades after people would use standard or localized British units (so a Pennsylvania pound was different from a Massachusetts pound, each different from the British pound sterling) equivalent to whatever they had on hand (like Spanish bullion for example).
Like even in the 1820s, John Quincy Adams reported that the dime was âutterly unknown,â whereas a Spanish reale would be accepted as a shilling in New York, nine pence in Boston and eleven pennies in Philadelphia, all based on the âabsurdâ application of English denominations to Spanish coins.
Tbh I'm not quite sure what coinage or paper money Knox was actually being paid in. Certainly not continental dollars as that money collapsed and was replaced with usd at at a 1000:1 conversion in 1792.
New York was using a localized Pound that had mixed sterling and devalued paper money but he probably was not using that localized rate when writing down expenses (everything would be worth 1/3 as much which doesn't quite make sense to me).
He would have been used to using pounds, shillings etc and that's probably why he wrote the list like that but whether the physical money he was paid in and used was pound sterlings or local NY pounds or some other coin like Spanish reales, not sure.
TonyzTone t1_jcwlhzt wrote
Makes sense. A regular person mightâve been able to afford a parcel of land. But almost no one here has the knowledge or skills to clear that land, lay a foundation, and build a house.
Ed_Hastings t1_jcwqtu5 wrote
I love how itâs so small that everyone is getting labeled by name, even in shared housing buildings. Imagine trying to do something like that now lol.
gammison t1_jcwwgpn wrote
It's not quite accurate. The population was over 2500 at the time, they've just marked large important estates and buildings.
Ed_Hastings t1_jcwwmvx wrote
That makes a lot more sense, thanks.
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