New York City – Page 3

Anthony Denaro’s Map of All of NYC’s Transit

Published on 24 August 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Never mind research that suggests that a single map adding bus lines to an already complicated subway map is cognitively overwhelming. Anthony Denaro has created a map of the New York City transit system that shows bus as well as subway routes—basically, a map of every means of transportation accessible by Unlimited MetroCard. Complex? You bet. Difficult to produce? Unquestionably: Anthony takes us through all the design choices he had to make. Difficult to use? Impossible for me to say (I haven’t even visited New York), but as Anthony points out, this map isn’t for tourists; it’s for frequent users. And no doubt it’ll be yet another engagement in the ongoing New York Subway Map War. [CityLab]

A Forthcoming Map Art Book About New York City

Published on 22 July 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Yesterday on her Facebook page, Katharine Harmon announced her next map art book: You Are Here: NYC: Mapping the Soul of the City is coming in November from Princeton Architectural Press. “It features 150 cartographic views of New York (which has to be the most-mapped city in the world)—including historical maps, cartoons, contemporary art, pictorial maps, hand-drawn maps, and more,” Harmon writes. Based on her previous books, You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination (2004) and The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography (2009), both of which I own, this will almost certainly be a book worth looking for. Pre-order at Amazon.

New York Subway Line Posters

Published on 28 February 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Andrew Lynch has created posters of individual New York subway lines. Each poster contains ridership and historical data, and the lines are geographically accurate but are otherwise blank.

When I look at the subway map I always want to know where the lines really go. The VanMaps take this wish to a ridiculous extreme. A fully geographic map would be cluttered and difficult to read. I stripped that all away. All you have now is the essence, the subway itself and nothing else. In trying for the most geographic accuracy the map now becomes totally abstracted. The subway line exists on a blank plane. Totally accurate, totally useless. But damn does it look good.

[via]

Mapping Snow Removal in New York

Published on 23 January 201630 January 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

PlowNYC is the City of New York’s official snow removal website. It allows New Yorkers to, in real time, “(1) track the progress of DSNY spreader/plow vehicles; and (2) confirm the snow designation of City streets (i.e., primary, secondary, tertiary, or non-DSNY).” [via]

Urban Scratchoff

Published on 21 January 201624 January 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Using an interactive interface to compare present-day and historical maps and aerial imagery is done all the time—on this website I use a slider plugin—but Chris Whong’s Urban Scratchoff uses a familiar metaphor to compare present-day aerial images of New York City with imagery from 1924. Give it a try. More on how Chris did it. [via]

New York Music Map

Published on 21 January 201624 January 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

The New York Music Map is a typographical map made up of some 450 musical artists with some connection to the city. (Some choices are bound to be controversial.) A project of the U.K.-based Kingdom Collective, it’s available in both online and print forms. [via]

Mapping New York City’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Published on 21 January 201624 January 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

By cross-referencing public data on energy consumption with georeferenced tax lot data, Jill Hubley has created an interactive map of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions by property, colour-coded to show the biggest emitters. More on how she did it, and what the data reveal. [via]

The Best New York City Maps of 2015

Published on 16 January 201624 January 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Over on Metrocosm, Max Galka has assembled his pick of the 10 best New York City maps of 2015. The list includes maps of buildings, trees and languages, pathogens and crime, housing and “interestingness,” among others. [via]

Circular Subway Maps

Published on 29 July 20134 November 2017 by Jonathan Crowe

Map designer Max Roberts has designed subway maps for London and New York that are based on a series of concentric circles. Strictly for fun (and shock and horror), he says, but there’s an undeniable clarity to them. Via Kottke.

Mapping Manhattan

Published on 3 April 20134 November 2017 by Jonathan Crowe

A new book collects hand-drawn maps of Manhattan submitted by both anonymous and notable New Yorkers: Becky Cooper’s Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers.

It started with Manhattan in the summer of 2009 when Becky was still an undergraduate at Harvard University. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, as well as her own experience creating a map of New York’s public art, Becky walked the length of Broadway, distributing over a thousand letterpress-printed outlines of the borough to the widest variety of New Yorkers she could find.

The maps she got back have been posted online, and now there’s a book. Fascinating project. Brain Pickings and The New York Times Magazine have profiles (with image galleries). Via io9.

The Measure of Manhattan

Published on 20 December 201222 October 2017 by Jonathan Crowe

Another mapmaker is getting a book-length biography. The Measure of Manhattan, Marguerite Holloway’s biography of surveyor John Randel, Jr. (1787-1865), whose decade-long survey of the island of Manhattan was the basis for that city’s street grid, comes out in February. Via BLDGBLOG, who blurbed it: “Marguerite Holloway’s engaging survey takes us step by step through the challenges of obsolete land laws and outdated maps of an earlier metropolis, looking for—and finding—the future shape of this immeasurable city.” Buy at Amazon | publisher’s page