About us

Erlandsen-Crowell & Shaw is a full-service surveying firm which has built a reputation of quality service since 1852 within the public and engineering community. At present, Erlandsen-Crowell & Shaw owns and continues to maintain extensive survey records in the New York City area.

Successors to E.W. Conklin & Sons, F.W. Conklin, A.E. Conklin, John J. McLaughlin, S.H. McLaughlin & Co., Metropolis Engineering Co., C.W. Birdsall & Son, Evan Bros., Wm. L. Fredericks and Theodore E. Schaff, this land surveying business was founded in 1852 by E.W. Conklin. In 1915 Erlandsen and Crowell bought the business.

In 1938 Arthur Shaw replaced Crowell and in 1943 he bought out Erlandsen’s shares and became the sole owner. Malcolm Shaw joined his father in 1955 upon graduation from Brooklyn Polytech as a Civil Engineer. He assumed full ownership when his father died in 1976. Both Malcolm and his father Arthur served as President of the New York State Association of Professional Land Surveyors. Malcolm would receive the Surveyor of the Year Award in 2014 and later, posthumously, the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. These awards were granted by the New York State Association of Professional Land Surveyors.

David Shaw, the current owner of the company, graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Engineering in 1983. He has been a licensed and registered professional land surveyor since August 9, 1996, and was appointed city surveyor on July 26, 2001. He became a partner of Erlandsen-Crowell & Shaw in 2006.

Erlandsen-Crowell & Shaw continues to provide quality service to a wide range of clients in the greater New York City area ranging from residential title surveys to large construction projects, ALTA surveys and optical monitoring.