I make no bones about preferring Batman over other superheroes. So when putting together the map of a secondary world for a new story idea, I started poring over maps of other cities, Gotham included. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before I fall down the Gotham internet rabbit hole.
If you’d like to fall down that hole with me, I’d suggest starting here. Smithsonian Magazine had a great story about how the map of Gotham was put together. You can see it evolve over a few iterations, getting the placement of everything just right, until it finally looked like this:
The Wikipedia entry for Gotham City is also a rich vein worth tapping. Oh, and for the New Yorkers out there who take pride in living in Gotham City, you should know (and I just learned this yesterday), according to the 1990 edition of “The Atlas Of The DC Universe,” Gotham City is on the north side of the Delaware River–i.e., in New Jersey (and Metropolis is in Delaware).