Category: Maps
-
The Rat Portal, Redux
NYC’s new Rat Czar and the mayor have created a new look for the city’s rat portal – a map of property in the city, color coded according to rat activity inspections: Pink and purple are not good (notice how all our parks fail…) and green means all good. Check it out yourself to see…
-
Languages in New York
A great map of the languages spoken in NYC: Drilling down into the linguistic mosaic of Harlem and East Harlem you can see the complex, vibrant culture of Harlem immigrants – everything from lesser-known languages spoken by close-knit communities like Akan – an African language spoken by Ghanaian and Ivorian immigrants, to large linguistic groups…
-
Colonial Park 1930’s
A view of Colonial Park, now Jackie Robinson Park, from the 155th Street Viaduct. The photo was clearly taken on a wet day, though no one in the photo has an open umbrella. Note the ubiquitous window awnings to help with the summer sun/heat (pre-air conditioning). Below is a detail of the park where the…
-
Uptown, 1842
In 1842, Manhattan (of course) showed settlement down at the tip of the island, and in a few locations northward. In this view, Harlem is the densest settlement north of 59th Street: Note how West Harlem (Manhattanville, mostly) and East Harlem (then known as just Harlem). were settled, whereas what we call Central Harlem was…
-
Sidewalk Sheds
The Department of Buildings keeps a record on sidewalk sheds and provides a great map to look at them. Central Harlem currently has 249 sidewalk sheds, whereas East Harlem has 202. Mapped, the data shows that they are, pretty much, everywhere: And, if you filter for 5 years or older! Here’s the map you get:…
-
10030 and 10029 Hit Hard By Canadian Forest Fire Smoke
The New York City ZIP codes with the highest numbers of asthma-related emergency room visits during last week’s smoke haze were disproportionately in low-income, predominantly Black and Hispanic communities, according to an analysis of local health department and Census data by Gothamist. The foul air from Canada’s wildfires was bad all over, but the impact…
-
The Other Harlems
No, not the Haarlem in the Netherlands, the Harlems in Georgia, Montana, Florida, and Illinois. This project doesn’t account for neighborhoods but only takes into consideration counties or towns. Thus our Harlem isn’t in the running. The population numbers of America’s other Harlems is interesting: If you’d like to test drive another location, here’s the…
-
Life Expectancy
A fascinating map showing where people live longer, and where people die sooner: America is seeing the greatest gap in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years. While most people will live to 78, some Americans are likely to die more than a decade earlier if they happen to be born in a…
-
Black Star Lines
A great map of Harlem, showing sites both secular and sacred: Molly Roy, the cartographer, and designer, produced the map in Nonstop Metropolis, a culminating volume in a trilogy of atlases. Her work (she has a number of maps in the atlas) reveals the intimate, ephemeral, and complex experiences of New York City. The larger…
-
Spatial Information Design Lab
Since 2005, Columbia University’s Spatial Information Design Lab has been exploring the geography of incarceration. In their project The Pattern, the Columbia University team looks at the relationship between impoverished communities and their physical infrastructure, racial make-up, community investment, and incarceration. The Design Lab’s resulting maps are fascinating explorations of how we have not only…
-
Where Is Harlem?
In a 1948 subway and bus route guide to New York City, Harlem’s boundaries are given as: Between 110th and 155th Sts., around Park and Lenox Aves. However you define Harlem, this piece from Curbed is a great dive into the invariably shifting boundaries of this northern Manhattan community: https://ny.curbed.com/2015/8/20/9933196/tracing-350-years-of-harlems-ever-shifting-boundaries Above is an approximate mapping…
-
Haarlem vs. Harlem
The oldest map that shows habitation in Harlem is the Manatus Map from 1639. You can see Staten Island, Hell Gate, the Hudson river, etc. It’s unclear who the cartographer was, and the original drawing is lost. As a result, the image above is one of two later 17th-century copies made in the same studio with…
