New York City in Legos

Christoph Niemann’s illustrations have appeared on the covers of The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. His newest book, I LEGO N.Y., shows us another view of New York, with Legos, including maps:



His project started during the cold and dark Berlin winter days...

New York City Subway Map Fabric

I'm catching up on fun maps during Transit Map Theme Week here at Cartophilia.

The City Quilter of New York City "specializes in fabric for the urban quilter and sewer" (oh, sew-er, I had to re-read that before I understood they weren't talking about the underground sanitary system...) including New York themed fabric patterns like this:



The New York City Subway System is available in three backgrounds (white, beige and black).

Other New York City themed fabrics; taxis and the New York Times:



Via The Map Room

Smells of New York

New York Times: Scents and the City By Jason Logan. An interactive map of the smells of New York:

New York secretes its fullest range of smells in the summer; disgusting or enticing, delicate or overpowering, they are liberated by the heat. So one sweltering weekend, I set out to navigate the city by nose...

Fortunately, for all of us, they have not yet perfected Internet smell-o-vision...

HT to Gwen

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New York Pops Up

An excellent info-graphic that uses a "3-D" effect to portray population. In this case, it contrasts the population shift that goes on in New York City (a portion of Manhattan, to be specific) between day and night. The bars showing relative numbers looks like a stratospheric city skyline:



I got a chuckle when my imagination created the image of a city with massive towers that rise out of the ground as workers arrive in the morning, and recess in the evening as all the workers go home. No need for elevators!

Via The Urbanophile

Henry Hudson 400

2009 marks the 400th anniversary of explorer Henry Hudson's voyage to what is now New York City. His exploration up the Hudson River laid the claim for the Dutch colony of New Netherland and the town of New Amsterdam.

The Henry Hudson 400 Foundation, a joint effort by New York and Amsterdam, has created a bilingual website to commemorate the event, including an interactive map to retrace Hudson's famous voyages:



Previously on Cartophilia: Manhattan Euro

3-D Aerial View of Manhattan

Beautiful aerial view of Manhattan in 3-D from Pixelcase. Zoom in and rotate, along with spacey music.

Via Kelso’s Corner

#390

Ringworld Manhattan

Several people sent this one to me:

Here & There is a map of Manhattan looking uptown from 3rd and 7th, and downtown from 3rd and 35th. It puts the viewer simultaneously above the city and in it where she stands, both looking down and looking forward.



Of course, science fiction fans immediately think of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama:



and Larry Niven's Ringworld:



Television's Babylon 5 also took place inside a circular space station:



and video game fans can't help but think of Halo (a blatant rip-off of Ringworld):

Manhattan Euro

This morning I highlighted the fictitious Amero coin with a map on it. Then this evening, on the Cartografie Twitter feed I saw a ling to a real coin, the Dutch Euro, featuring the island of Manhattan:



According the to the Dutch map blog, Studiekring Historische Cartografie, The Netherlands has issued a 5 Euro coin commemorating the 400th anniversary Henry Hudson's discovery of the island of Manhattan, soon to be the city of New Amsterdam, later New York. (Why'd they change it? I can't say. Maybe they like it better that way.)

My best understanding of the Dutch text, using an online translator: The front shows, along with an inset of Queen Beatrix, the exact structures of Manhattan anno 2009. The artist has given the coin a 3D impression of of Southern Manhattan. The back of the coin has the landscape of Manhattan anno 1609, accurately reflected thanks to scientific research of the Wildlife Conservation society in New York.

To my Dutch readers, please feel free to tell me more!

Studiekring Historische Cartografie is another great map blog. The love of maps is universal!

UPDATE 4/8: I knew I could count on the friendly Dutch people to help me out. Here is a link to the English translation

Sitcom Maps

What was the fictional locale of your favorite TV sitcom? New York City? Milwaukee? Reno? Cocoa Beach?

Dan Meth, as a part of his series of Popular Culture Charts will help you find them on his U.S.A. Sitcom Map:



There are, of course, a disproportionate number of sitcoms that take place in New York City (although they were probably filmed in Hollywood, California):



I'm guessing that perhaps chart #5 will be a map of Southern California?

UPDATE 4/7: UK TV Series Map at meish.org

Mapping Rats

From Time Magazine online: Mapping the Rats in New York City, by Christine Gorman.

Michael Mills, a veteran health inspector in New York City, helps create a map of the city you won't find in any guidebook: a rat map. That's right, a map of the New York neighborhoods that rodent populations call home.

The city's rat map was first introduced a year ago, with an intensive pilot program in the Bronx. Mills and other inspectors scoured the streets, building by building, cataloging rat hot spots — places that show so-called active rat signs, such as lived-in burrows, fresh droppings, telltale gnaw marks on plastic garbage bags — in an effort to target rodent-control measures more effectively. That geocoding information was entered into each inspector's handheld indexing computer and aggregated with similar data from all across the borough.

The New York City Department of Health and Hygiene provides a Rat Information Portal. From there you can pull up the Rat Map and retrieve rat data by borough, community district, zip code, or specific address.

Note the cute little rat icon that pops up when updating the map.

The most interesting book I have read on rats... OK, really the only book I have ever read on rats, is Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan. I enjoyed reading this book, and not just because of the great map cover:



Sullivan provides a compact history of rats in North America, but focuses primarily on New York City. His "field studies" include spending weeks in alleys observing the daily life of rats, and riding with "pest control technicians".

Publishers Weekly said, "Like any true New Yorker, Sullivan is able to convey simultaneously the feelings of disgust and awe that most city dwellers have for the scurrying masses that live among them."

HT to La Gringissima for the Time article.

Map Shoes Go Swoosh!... and Splash!

Rex Parker, crossword puzzle solver and vintage paperback book collector, sent to me this photo of a map on a Nike shoe:


That prompted me to seek out more info... instead, what I found were additional examples of maps on Nike shoes.


From MyFirstAirShoes.com:




From SlamJump.com.



See previous examples of map shoes:

The Tennessee Representa and Jennifer Collier's map shoe sculpture.

Also, while searching for map shoe information, I was reminded of this amusing, yet environmentally tragic story the cargo ship full of Nike products that accidentally dumped in the North Pacific back in 1999. Shoes and other flotsam were washing up on British Columbian beaches for years.

More recently, there have been grisly stories of Nike (and other) shoes, with feet still in them, washing up in BC.

9/11Maps

The University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library offers many of their maps online. In addition, they have compiled lists of maps on other sites by topic. In honor of today's sad anniversary; Maps Relating to September 11, 2001 and Later Events:



This map was produced by the New York City Department of Buildings to give a general of overview of damage done to buildings near the World Trade Center, as introduced in the Moussaoui trial.

Big Apple, or Big Spud?

From Very Small Array, via Curbed.com

Two really cool mappish/design/architecture/popular culture/etc. and other stuff blogs I've just discoverd.

Maps On The Brain

A selection of recent publications with maps on the cover:

A book:

The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain by George Lakoff

The author attempts to explain why a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests.



Some magazines:





The cover of this issue of The New Yorker (June 23, 2008) features cover art, “Summer Job”, by Bruce McCall.

If you cannot make out the detail, it fancifully depicts bears checking in and out of the "Employees Entrance" at a National Park, while the tourist are reminded, "No picnicing in Buffalo Wallows."

If you look very closely, you can see that, yes indeed, there is a map! A "You Are Here" map of the park for the tourists.

This cover reminds me of the old Warner Brothers Cartoon where Ralph the wolf and Sam the sheepdog clock in, as buddies, before battling over the sheep.



“Subway Man”, by Roz Chast, graces the June 30 issue of The New Yorker. A stressed out commuter IS the transit map of Manhattan.

Finally, the June 21, 2008, issue of the New Scientist magazine features a very hot looking planet Earth, for a cover story on global warming.


#207

Manhattan Rose to the Occasion

Aware that the Island of Manhattan has lately been taking a holday... Michael5000 noticed a special visitor at the Portland Rose Festival:




#194

Flight of Manhattan

Fun with MapQuest and Google Maps.

First it was Bill Renken's Errant Isle of Manhattan, on Radical Cartography: "What would happen if Manhattan itself decided to take a tour of the oceans, stopping at other cities to refuel and have a good time."

First stop: Chicago



Jason Kottke speculates on a visit to San Francisco



Seth Holladay takes the island to Boston



However, the first thing I thought of, after viewing these fantastical maps, was the series of science fiction books by James Blish; Cities in Flight. Centuries into the future, the invention of massive antigravity devices allow entire cities, including New York, to get up and leave the planet. These "Okies", as they come to be known, struggle to get by as they offer their services to less industrialized planets.






UPDATE 6/10: Just came across this entry in the Worth1000.com B2B: Miniature Worlds contest: Colony City By funkwood

Map Impact

I am already a big fan of Worth 1000, an image manipulation contest site. It is always fun to browse their galleries and see what these PhotoShop wizards will create next. Of course, this image is my current favorite:



This entry, Map Impact, by "doehlman" was entered in the Liquid Assets 8 contest: "For this contest, you should swap any liquid with another object."

Creator Comments: A strawberry hits the big apple

Take Manhattan

For your entertainment, two views of New York City:

Places & Spaces presents "New York - Global Island" by Danielle Hartman. "This image of Manhattan presents New York literally as a global island. Country shapes are arranged into the form of Manhattan. The circular title reintroduces the shape of the globe. This map is inspired by the international diversity if New York’s residents." Based on 2000 Census Data.

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From Appealing Industries, an animated GIF starts with a blank subway map and draws each line in the sequence in which it was built.





Via the Manhattan Users Guide.

The Best of New York

My library's copy of the March 10-17, 2008, issue of New York Magazine has this festive cartographic image on its cover (right):



However, when I went to the magazine's website, they insist that this is the cover of the issue (left).

Do they perhaps have different covers for their city issues and the issues that go out to the hinterland? Do they assume non-New Yorkers will need this map to find their way around the Best of New York?...

UPDATE 3/12: Lauren Starke of New York magazine explains. "NY mag held a design competition for its Best of NY cover and chose 2 winners, one for subscribers (the subway map block letters) and one for newsstands. You can see runners -up here: http://nymag.com/bestofny/2008/covers/"

Thank you!

Transit Maps of the World

I've been waiting for months, and I finally got my hands on a copy of Transit Maps: The World's First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth, by Mark Ovenden. This work is a comprehensive collection of historic and current maps of every rapid-transit system on earth. With all of its colorful graphics, it makes a beautiful coffee-table book for travel and graphic design enthusiasts.

Major cities all over the globe are included. Here is an example from Tokyo:



Also included, this fanciful map of a world united by a single transit system:



The history of the London Underground can be charted by the succession of user maps that were produced through the last century:



From my collection, two postcards of the London Underground showing some growth of the extended lines:

1985	circa 1995

Below are the other two transit map postcards from my collection:



Trade offers for for additional transit map postcards are always welcome.

For additional fun with transit maps, see my earlier post.

Finally, this transit map representation of Eustace Tilley. This map was one of the winners in a contest where artists were invited to create new versions of the mascot of the New Yorker Magazine.

“Eustace Tilley Subway”, by Alberto Forero, Minneapolis, Minnesota