Muder Mapping

This is what I hope to see more of in the future. Maps that can present a slew of data in a way the illuminates the contrasts across city neighborhoods. I would like to see these maps with an even richer set of data embedded in them, and perhaps hyper-linked to stories about them.


NYT Murder Map

Sub par

I found a story in the NY Times from last year that would have made the perfect profile, a man obsessed with redesigning the NYC Subway map. He hasn't made much headway on convincing the city, but reading the piece got me thinking. There are several inches of empty space on the left and right side of the map, with Manhattan positioned off-center left. If you cut off the empty water on the left and condensed the 4-5 inches of Long Island on the right, where no subways run at all, you could greatly increase the detail of the remaining map and perhaps restore some of the parity in terms of scale to Brooklyn and Queens. I think I will try and touch base with this fellow, even if his story has been done already, as he will probably have some friends or leads in the world of mapping.

NY Times Story

Meet me at the Cube

I found another typogrqapher today who leads walking tours of the city's letters. He seems like a very interesting fellow, he has also led tours in Rome and clearly is interested in both letters and the city itself.I'm meeting him tomorrow for our first chat. I told him I was going to school off Cooper Square, and we agreed to meet at Astor place. Referring to the statue there he ended our conversation by saying. "Ok, 10:30, at the Cube."




Sweet

Feel Free

So I got the ok to write about Christopher Hitchens. I sent him a sort of pleading e-mail and he was very nice about the whole thing. Now I'm trying to craft a piece about our evening, except I haven't written in the first person in years. On my first draft I think maybe I ended up going a little overboard with the inner mono-log. I've got to pitch it to the Observer by the end of this week, so it looks like more late nights ahead.


Ben