Considering that John Nolan may have died outside of NYC you might try the records of "Bodies in Transit," which were licenses to travel with the remains of the deceased thru New York City (Manhattan). So if your ancestor died outside of New York City, and was being buried in the city or just traveling thru, they would have needed this document. These records are great!---they give the name of the deceased, age, place and date of death, place of interment, cause of death, name of doctor, etc, and exist for the years 1859 to 1894.