Mapped street

A mapped street is one legally established on the City Map — the city's official record of streets, their widths, and their grades. Mapping is a legal act distinct from construction: a mapped street may exist on paper long before, or without ever, being built, while a well-used private road may appear nowhere on the map.

The status carries real consequences. Frontage on a mapped street is generally a precondition for building permits under state law; the mapped width — not the visible pavement — is what the Zoning Resolution's wide-street and narrow-street distinctions read; and mapped-but-unbuilt 'paper streets' can burden lots that appear, on the ground, to be ordinary land.